Band 9: You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The chart gives employment and education statistics for eight European countries in 2015. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The provided table illustrates the variation in employment rates, tertiary education attainment, and average annual earnings across eight European nations in 2015.

Overall, there is a general correlation between the proportion of highly educated adults and the average income received. Norway and Luxembourg stand out across all three categories, whereas Greece recorded the lowest employment rate, and Bulgaria had the lowest average salary.

Focusing on the highest figures, Norway registered the highest employment rate (74.8% of those aged 16-64) and the largest percentage of citizens with a college or university education (43.2% of 25-64 year olds), leading to the highest average income by a significant margin at €41,483. Luxembourg also performed strongly, with an average income of €34,320 and high education (41.1%) and employment (66.1%) levels. The UK had the lowest average earnings in this high-income group, at €20,945, despite a strong employment rate of 72.7%.

Conversely, the remaining five countries all reported average annual salaries below €10,000. Among these, Bulgaria offered the lowest annual income at only €3,332, despite having a relatively high employment rate of 62.9%. At the bottom of the employment scale, Greece offered the fewest jobs overall, with a rate of just 50.8%, for an average salary of €7,520. Finally, Portugal recorded the lowest percentage of highly educated adults, at 22.9%, and its average income stood at €8,435.