Graduates face skills mismatch, new report says
Graduates are facing a skills mismatch as they enter the workplace, with more graduates available than highly skilled jobs.
According a report released this month by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), graduates are facing a skills mismatch when they enter the job market. Not enough highly skilled jobs have been created to accommodate the rising number of students attending and graduating from university.
The CIPD's report Over-qualification and skills mismatch in the graduate labour market states that as a result of the lack of available jobs, many graduates are filling positions normally reserved for less skilled non-graduates. The CIPD found that 58.8% of graduates are currently in non-graduate jobs, with the impact being felt more heavily in careers typically associated with apprenticeships, such as construction and manufacturing.
The Chief Executive of the CIPD, Peter Cheese, believes the problem is systemic.
"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," he says. "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 skill's premium, if it exists at all, is simply wasted."
Cheese is looking to the government to help businesses, and particularly small businesses, fix the problem.
"The government needs to ensure its productivity plan includes a specific focus on creating more high-skilled jobs and work with employers, particularly SMEs, and with key stakeholders like Local Enterprise Partnerships and Business Growth Hubs to help build organisations' capability to achieve this."
"In addition," he says, "efforts need to be redoubled to ensure young people who are making choices after receiving their GCSE and A level results can access good quality careers information, advice and guidance so they can make better informed decisions."
Further recommendations from the CIPD include a review of recruitment practices to prevent employers from unnecessarily screening candidates on degree-level education.