Spanish workers are the most overqualified in the European Union

One out of three workers in Spain performs a employment which requires less training than the obtained, or what is the same, rate requalification is almost 36%the leading figure among the countries of the European Union (EU), whose middle is 22.2%.

This rate, which he prepared Eurostat and updated with data from 2022, it measures the share of people who have a job that requires less training than that obtained in relation to the working age population.

Since 2013, the first year of Eurostat’s historical series, Spain leads Europe in the number of workers with more training than their job requires.

According to the Labor Force Survey (EPA), at the end of 2022, 46.2% of employees had higher education, which is the largest group by level of study, followed by those who completed up to the first level of secondary education (25.2%) and those who completed up to the second level of secondary education schools (13.66%).

Consulted experts from human resources companies point to a Lack of specialists with scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical degreessince the demand for workers is growing at a faster rate than the supply of college graduates.

Likewise, sources CEO They warned about the mismatch between training and the company’s need for new profiles for the double ecological and digital transition, as well as the failure in the professional guidance of young people.

Disagreement in degrees

Researcher from Fedea Marcel Jansen points out that “The number of students has increased more than the number of jobs” which require this degree, so many graduates “end up in jobs below their education”. And he adds that “there is a clear mismatch in the qualifications and fields of students and the demand of companies.”

“The educational offer is poorly connected to what companies need”summarizes Jansen, who points out that, although labor market Spanish requires the same as European, there is a difference in offer workers.

This implies, according to the Fede researcher, that those people who occupy a position that requires less training have “little satisfaction” and become demotivated, which generates “full mobility”, something that companies do not like, so that overqualification “does not have a positive effect on salaries or careers.”

For his part, the director of Randstad ResearchValentín Bote confirms that a job can have an adequate salary and working conditions, but that they do not match the person’s aspirations “because in that situation they are overqualified”.

“A person who has a university degree, but graduated in a field of knowledge for which professional opportunities are very limited, has to look for other opportunities and many times ends up in overqualified situations,” explains Bote, who points out that “it is inevitable” that someone who made an effort to study a career “end up frustrated” at his job.

Poor adaptability of the educational system

According to Jansen, this situation is explained by the fact that educational system Spanish “adapts very poorly and very slowly to the needs of companies”, although this also has to do with students, who choose which degree to study without taking into account arranging work this one.

“We need to greatly improve the guidance of students so that they know what can really be good for them and we need to encourage them to choose careers with good job prospects,” continues Fede’s researcher, who says he feels “frustrated” by the “enormous waste of talent”, in relation to to students studying with few employment opportunities.

In the same vein, the director of Randstad Research assures that, although the number of graduates has increased in the last decade, engineering and computing have decreased and “these are fields of study where professional opportunities have increased sharply in recent years.” time”.

Jansen insists that it’s not just about creating university students, but about studying courses that match the students’ “talent” and that are linked to the job market.