Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Communities) has just released a brief of statistics on the early career stage of doctorate holders.
According to Eurostat, in 2004, European countries awarded 93,235 doctoral degrees when US awarded 48,378. On the old continent, France ranks third (8,420 new PhDs in 2004), behind Germany (23,135) and United Kingdom (15257), right in front of Spain (8,168).
In Germany, still in 2004, the unemployment rate of doctorate holders was 3.2% only, to be compared to 8.6% in the general population.
Too bad that French data are often missing in this international benchmarking.
Source : Doctorate holders, the beginning of their career, by Tomas Meri, Statistics in Focus, #131/2007, Eurostat, 20/12/2007.