More than half the workers in a huge swath of occu- pations think they are overqualified, research commis- sioned by the Financial Times shows. The figures reopen the debate about whether Britain is spending too much taxpayer money on churning out gradu- ates. They could also be used against employers, accused by many economists of failing to adapt their business models to reap full benefit from the gradu- ates in their workforces.
Two-thirds of people in ‘customer service occupa- tions’, which include call centre workers, think their qualifications are more elevated than their job requires. For example, university graduates would count themselves overqualified if they were doing work they believed called for nothing more than A-levels.
Almost two-thirds of people in sales occupations also think they are overqualified, and more than 60 per cent in ‘elementary administration and service occupa- tions’, which include junior clerical workers and postmen, feel this way.
Francis Green, an economist at Kent University who carried out the research, said the high figures were not surprising, since graduates were ‘absolutely pouring into the labour market’. Professor Green said the proportion of workers who thought they were overqualified had increased by about five percentage points nationwide in five years.