In an article published in the journal Human Relations, Belgin Okay-Somerville (PhD, Human Resource Management) from the University of Aberdeen and Professor (of Human Resource Management) Dora Scholarios from the University of Strathclyde claim that the number of "skilled jobs" no longer matches the number of "skilled workers".
This means that graduates have no choice but to take rubbish jobs or, at best, "intermediate level" positions. Naturally these are a long way from the sort of jobs once dished out to graduates in the days when a degree was a rare badge of distinction, rather than something which fell out of your cornflakes packet following three years of alcohol-fuelled fornication.
The Scottish-based trick-cyclists surveyed 7,787 graduate employees, finding that just 379 met their criteria for what defines a good job. These smug and satisfied employees worked in managerial, professional or associate professional occupations and had already racked up between 5 and 15 years in the real world after graduating.
The authors split the labour market into "lovely" and "lousy" jobs, with the former being represented by managerial and professional occupations and the latter by low-paid roles like sales or "personal services", which encompasses everything from tattoo artists to postmen. Oddly enough, graduates working in these "lousy" roles admitted to lower job satisfaction.
The report said: "For some skilled university graduates, their skills, qualifications and knowledge no longer guarantees higher earnings or opportunities to use and develop knowledge and skills."
The researchers claimed their findings challenged the Labour government's oft-criticised policy of sending 50 per cent of school leavers to university, a plan intended to create a high-skill, high-wage economy. Rather than conjuring a utopia of hyper-rich brainboxes who gambol to work with a spring in their step, however, the authors reckoned this policy instead pushed vast swathes of graduates into jobs that don't require the skills they presumably acquired in higher education.
Source: The Register
