Business group: Jobs market oversaturated with graduates
A LEADING industry group is calling on the government to spark a “national debate” with employers and families about how to create more high-skilled jobs.
In a report out today, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – the professional body for human resource management professionals – claims that graduate over-qualification has reached a “saturation point”.
The report argues that an increase in the number of graduates in the labour market has “significantly outstripped the creation of high-skilled jobs”, leading to “negative consequences” such as high levels of student debt and high-skilled workers taking jobs which previously did not require a university degree.
CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese, said: “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.”
“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,” he said, adding, “In many cases, that skills premium, if it exists at all, is simply wasted.”