Graduate Glut Spells Underused Skills and Dissatisfaction for Many
Yet.... Industry is moaning the lack of a trained "TECHNICAL" workforce (mechanics, machinists, electricians, automation & instrumentation techs).... Especially here in NV, we can't seem to get a "technical collage" system going (and the Community Colleges aren't interested in "the dirty fingernail bunch". But we sure are "graduating" a lot of McDonnalds folk...
Graduate Glut Spells Underused Skills and
Dissatisfaction for Many
Apr. 4, 2013 — Science Daily
Graduates are taking
up jobs that don't fully use their skills and as a result are causing high
turnover for employers, claims new research published today in the journal Human
Relations, published by SAGE. The findings raise questions about today's
high throughput in university education.
Policy makers in many developed and
developing countries envisioned high-value economies supported in part by a
highly-skilled and well-paid workforce. As a result, many nations have
increased higher education (HE) access, assuming that employers will be able to
use this larger bank of skills effectively. However, the number of skilled jobs
has not matched the rising number of skilled workers, so that today's higher
qualifications no longer guarantee graduates higher earnings, or further
opportunities to use and develop knowledge and skills. Many graduates are now
employed in 'intermediate' level jobs previously not regarded as graduate jobs.
Belgin Okay-Somerville from the
University of Aberdeen and Dora Scholarios from the University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, have identified five areas where emerging (intermediately skilled)
graduate occupations diverge from traditional graduate occupations:
- "Graduateness" -- the extent to which skills associated with graduate jobs are used in emerging occupations;
- How closely a graduate's skills match those required of the job;
- Job content, in particular job control and opportunity for skill development;
- Job security; and
- Pay.
Together these indicators give a
benchmark of job quality, which Okay-Somerville and Scholarios examined in a
sample drawn from the 2006 UK Skills Survey. Of a sample of 7787 employees, 379
met the criteria for the study. These employees worked in managerial,
professional or associate professional occupations, and had 5-15 years'
post-degree work experience.
The new, emerging graduate
occupations offered inferior skills utilization, job content, job security and
pay. Not surprisingly these lower quality jobs, marked out by less opportunity
for skill use and job control, led to graduates with lower job satisfaction and
organizational commitment. No matter what the occupation, job content was the
most important factor for satisfaction, commitment and well-being.
There is now an abundance of
evidence that a substantial minority of graduates start their careers in
non-graduate low-skill, low-pay occupations. Employment in emerging occupations
may imply a step up, but does not compare with traditional graduate roles.
"Generally, the findings
challenge the equating of job quality with wages at the economic policy-making
level, and the high-skills, high-wages agenda, which has been prominent in the
UK," says Okay-Somerville. "Acceptance of intermediately skilled jobs
as 'graduate occupations' without interventions designed to make better use of
graduates' skills may result in 'good jobs going bad' in the graduate labor
market."
The authors say their research
supports an emphasis on demand-side employer-based policies aimed at job design
and work organization, and offers a picture of how graduates themselves
perceive various elements of job quality. Active dialogue between employer
practice and skills policies should help to create 'good' graduate jobs, and to
make 'bad' graduate jobs better.
This research forms part of a Human
Relations special issue on job quality which features articles on what is
meant by job quality and why it matters to individuals, firms and to national
well being, drawing on contributions from international scholars and research.
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posted by cl @ 11:45 AM
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