Serbia spent around 3.46% of GDP on public education in 2025, below the EU average of 4.7% in the latest comparable year, the European Commission’s Serbia 2026 Report said. Dated 4 November 2026, the report links the education picture to companies’ difficulties recruiting suitable workers.
The employment rate of recent graduates fell to 70.1% in 2025 from 73.1% in 2024. The Commission assessed Serbia’s education and training as not being of sufficient quality to meet labour-market needs.
Participation in lifelong learning remains low, while practical workplace training opportunities are uneven despite the modernisation of vocational education, the report noted. Serbia’s student population is also shrinking because of demographic decline and emigration.
The Commission said the combination of low education investment and labour shortages is widening the mismatch between Serbia’s growth ambitions and its investment in human capital, which it identified as one of the country’s most binding investment constraints.
The report also treated education spending as industrial infrastructure because companies need workers able to operate increasingly sophisticated equipment. Serbia can finance roads, grids and industrial parks, but those assets will deliver less value if businesses cannot find workers able to operate that equipment.
