As a high school student enters the process of filling out his computer application, the many voices around him begin to create a narrative containing essentially the same story with someone who received a higher education and is now working “seasonally”, “in the service” or in some position that is not related to the subject of his studies. This very often becomes a reality after graduation, when new graduates are faced with the fact that financial needs are urgent and there are too few jobs they really want. This is how they end up with bachelor’s and master’s degrees being “wasted” in jobs that have many available jobs like tourism and services but leave unused excess skills and knowledge.

Her data Eurostat confirm this so “common” Greek story. In particular, according to the European Statistical Office, Greece ranks second in Europe after Spain in terms of the percentage of workers who have qualifications above what is required for their job, with almost one in three falling into this category.

In addition to overtraining, there is a particularly large number of people working in a cognitive field other than the one they studied. Greece had the highest share in this category in 2019, according to the latest OECD data, with 42% of workers employed in a field unrelated to their studies.

Problematic production model

Greece is at the top of both indicators non-compliance categories, horizontallythat is, one that includes graduates working in a field not related to their education, but also verticalwhen employees are overtrained for the position they are working in. Speaking with “K”, Mr. Angelos Efstratoglu, an INE/GSEE fellow, points to the country’s production model as the main reason for this discrepancy. “The country is made up of very small enterprises with low technological specialization which do not require so many graduates. It consists of such branches as Agriculture, trade And hotels. However, since these are very large industries that employ a very large number of workers, in these industries, graduates of higher education necessarily also find work, performing jobs that require a lower level of education.

Very “small” economy

The vision of Mr. Elias Kikilia, researcher at the National Center for Social Research, who also deals with the structure of the Greek economy. “Greece has a very shallow economy. Jobs created by the economy generally have a low educational qualification and therefore do not match the supply of labor, especially high-level human resources. If you look at the Greek economy 90% of GDP comes from consumption, which is dominated by businesses employing up to 100,000 people.“.

He notes that the economy cannot absorb graduates, and this has not changed, despite what has changed in recent decades. At the same time, financial need drives graduates in a certain direction of work in positions that do not correspond to their educational level. “Even after the immigration of 400-500 thousand people with high qualifications, there remains an excess labor market that cannot be mastered due to the lack of relevant positions. So what’s up? Most of these children are forced to work in jobs that would be for high school or high school graduates in order to live. Which does not require special training.

Unemployment protection shield

The mismatch between education and work seems to persist in the country as “the gap doesn’t seem to be closing at all,” comments Mr. Angelos Efstratoglou in K. “The only way to reduce it is to have more and more high-tech firms, which is not happening now,” he says.

However, Mr. Efstratoglu emphasizes that we should not discount the value of higher education. “A high level of education and education in general acts as a protective shield against unemployment. It is no coincidence that college graduates have the lowest unemployment rate compared to high school or high school graduates.”