Only 23.1% of Romanians aged 25 to 34 have completed some form of higher education, according to Eurostat data published in September 2026 and covering 2025. The EU average is nearly double, at 44.8%, putting Romania in last place in the European Union.

On paper, the figure sounds alarming. In everyday life, many young people without a degree earn at least as much as their university-educated peers: welders, electricians, cooks, transport managers. A Reddit thread, picked up by the Romanian daily Adevărul, gathered several such anonymous accounts, complete with concrete salaries.

The question that matters, whether you chose a trade over university or you recruit people who did, is a different one: how solid does this path remain as artificial intelligence (AI) and a slowdown in projects begin to thin out certain jobs?

What the Eurostat data show about Romania

The gap did not open overnight. In 2005, 27.2% of young people across the EU held a higher-education degree. Over the following two decades the share rose steadily across almost all of Europe, but Romania gained only 9.5 percentage points between 2005 and 2025, one of the smallest increases in the EU.

Eurostat considers the EU to be "on track" towards the 2030 target set under the European Education Area: at least 45% of young people holding a tertiary degree. The 44.8% average is already within touching distance of that threshold. Romania has barely passed the halfway mark.

European statistics reveal two further divides. The first is between women and men: in 2025, 50.5% of women in the EU aged 25 to 34 had a higher-education degree, compared with 39.3% of men. The second is between town and countryside: 55% in cities versus 32.9% in rural areas.

In its Education and Training Monitor 2025, the European Commission links Romania's low level to four causes: early school leaving, low participation of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in university education, university dropout and emigration. In other words, for many young people the lack of a degree is not a career choice but the result of a path interrupted much earlier.

How much people without a degree actually earn

The anonymous accounts in the Reddit thread describe a market in which skills and experience sometimes carry more weight than a diploma. Here are some of the salaries reported:

• Welder: 8,000 lei (RON) net per month, plus roughly 2,500 lei from extra jobs.

• Electrician from Prahova county: says he charges at least 500 lei a day and pays his helpers 300 lei a day.

• Transport manager without a degree: over 10,000 lei, after, he says, being laid off from Amazon in the US because of AI.

• Supermarket employee: between 6,000 and 6,500 lei take-home, plus meal vouchers.

• Cook: 6,000 lei take-home after six years of experience, working roughly 10 hours a day.

These figures should be read with caution: they are individual, unverified statements, not statistics. Some hide costs that never show up on a payslip. The cook works around 10 hours a day, beyond the standard 8-hour day set by the Codul Muncii (Romania's Labour Code), and a day rate does not automatically translate into a steady income every month.

Even so, the big picture is clear: an in-demand trade, done well, can bring in income comparable to that of many graduates, or even higher.

Where the maths breaks down: AI and thinning projects

The same thread also has a less reassuring side. A programmer earning 9,000 lei a month says projects suited to his level of experience are starting to disappear. The transport manager above blames AI for losing his job in the US. And a data engineer earning 17,000 lei net, plus bonuses, went back to university at 33.

Three stories do not make a trend, but they show where the risk lies. Work that is easy to standardise is the first exposed to automation, and when vacancies shrink, employers have plenty to choose from and may fall back on simple screening criteria, such as a degree.

European data point the same way. According to Eurostat, 87% of recent young university graduates in Europe were in employment in 2025, compared with 77.2% of upper-secondary graduates. In Romania, the employment rate of people with higher education reaches 92%, above the OECD average of 87%. A degree does not guarantee a high salary, but it seems to act as a safety net when the market tightens.

For employees and candidates: what to check before you decide

If you already work without a degree or are thinking of skipping university, the useful question is not "do I need a degree?" but "how exposed is my job and how quickly can I retrain?". A few things you can check:

• How easily your work can be automated: an electrician or welder does physical work in conditions that vary from one site to another; a role built on repetitive office tasks is more exposed.

• What others earn in the same role: compare your income with salaries reported anonymously on Salariometru, not just with stories from forums.

• Which recognised qualifications you can obtain: an apprenticeship, a licence or a certified course make your experience easier to prove to a new employer.

• What job ads in your field ask for: if more and more of the jobs you would want mention a university degree, that is a signal worth tracking early.

• What going back to university would cost you: the 33-year-old data engineer shows it is not too late, but the decision makes sense when you know exactly which skill you are after.

Factor in your hours, too. A good salary earned through 10-hour days, year after year, carries a price you pay later, including through burnout.

For HR: what it means for recruitment and retention

For employers, the 23.1% figure describes the real candidate pool: the vast majority of Romanians aged 25 to 34 do not have a university degree. A degree requirement added to a job ad out of habit rules out, from the start, many people who could do the job.

Companies that recruit well in this context usually have a few things in common:

• They separate real requirements from formal ones: when a degree is mandatory by law or by the nature of the role, it stays; when it isn't, a practical test or skills-based assessment says more about the candidate.

• They invest in internal reskilling: experienced employees whose tasks are taken over by AI can be moved into other roles rather than lost.

• They build apprenticeship and qualification pathways: candidates without a degree get a clear growth path, and the employer trains the people it needs.

• They communicate clear salary ranges: when a welder says he takes home 8,000 lei net and a cook 6,000, candidates compare offers, and an ad without figures loses out to one with figures.

The risk to avoid is the opposite one: that, faced with the uncertainty AI brings, the organisation retreats to the degree as an automatic filter. Employment data show graduates are better protected, but that does not make a candidate without a degree, with years of demonstrable experience, a weaker choice.

Last place in the EU for higher education does not mean that young Romanians without a degree earn poorly; the accounts often suggest the opposite. It does mean, however, that a large part of the workforce relies on experience and a trade, without a diploma to cushion the shocks. For employees, the task is to make their experience visible and transferable. For employers, it is to hire on skills without leaving their people behind when their jobs change.