Too many graduates in non-professional jobs, HR body says

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says many school-leavers may be better off enrolling on apprenticeships

八月 19, 2015
Graduate working as a cleaner

The UK’s professional body for human resources has complained that there are too many overqualified university leavers entering non-graduate jobs.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said that the government should launch a “large scale review” of the education system as it suggested that there may be more cost-effective ways of preparing young people for the labour market than sending them to university.

Its report, Over-qualification and Skills Mismatch in the Graduate Labour Market, says that the growth in the number of university leavers is “significantly outstripping” the growth in the provision of high-skilled jobs.

Drawing on data from the European Social Survey, it claims that 58.8 per cent of UK graduates are in non-graduate jobs, a percentage that was exceeded only in Greece and Estonia.

The report also claims that skill levels required for many jobs that now attract graduates have not increased significantly in recent years.

Peter Cheese, the CIPD’s chief executive, said that students receiving GCSE and A-level results this summer may be better off starting an apprenticeship than higher education.

“The assumption that we will transition to a more productive, higher value, higher skilled economy just by increasing the conveyor belt of graduates is proven to be flawed,” Mr Cheese said. “Simply increasing the qualification level of individuals going into a job does not typically result in the skill required to do the job being enhanced – in many cases that skills premium, if it exists at all, is simply wasted.”

Mr Cheese described the situation as being “unsustainable” when, according to predictions, more than 40 per cent of university graduates will not earn enough to repay their student loans.

“It’s crucial we as a nation take stock now of whether our higher education system is delivering desired returns for graduates, for organisations, and society,” he added.

The CIPD report says that the government should focus on creating more high-skilled jobs and improving the quantity and quality of apprenticeships.

It also says that employers should review their processes to ensure that they are not using a requirement for a degree as a “screening process” when recruiting for jobs that do not require a university education.

In contrast to the data used by the CIPD, the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey found that 68 per cent of graduates who left UK universities in 2014 were in graduate-level jobs within six months of leaving.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, said that UK graduates were “still in a substantially better position to obtain a job and, on average, earn substantially more than non-graduates over a working lifetime”.

“Many graduates do not go straight into their chosen careers after graduating. Some will get short-term jobs to fund further study or to go travelling. Employment figures looking at what graduates are doing three and a half years after graduation show that the vast majority are in full-time employment,” she added.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com

请先注册再继续

为何要注册?

  • 注册是免费的,而且十分便捷
  • 注册成功后,您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
  • 订阅我们的邮件
注册
Please 登录 or 注册 to read this article.

Reader's comments (2)

Many perhaps could initially be better redirected to level 3/4 courses that lead to Technician equivalent roles, but professional Societies/Institutes and employers would probably need to facilitate and support more readily achievable progression to Chartered grade of membership. However this step, generally requires further study during a busy career and/or family commitments, commonly inconvenient, and usually only possible with part time study. Otherwise most students may continue with the more convenient direct route of a degree alongside competitive contemporaries, then take their chances to develop worked based competency through CPD, subsequent promotion and enhanced salary prospects.
Correction: 68% of recent graduates were in what HEFCE and hesa call "professional" jobs. This category includes associate professional and technical occupations, which the Office for National Statistics makes clear can be done by people with vocational qualifications. A degree is NOT required to do these jobs. Stripping them out of the HEFCE/HESA data shows that only a minority of (employed) graduates have truly graduate- level jobs six months after graduating. Furthermore, under-employment persists and is strongly evident three and a half years after graduating.