‘One in three uni graduates in job below level’
One in three newly Dutch university graduates has a job below graduate level. Higher professional education graduates are doing slightly better: Twenty percent of the HBO graduates have a position below graduate level.
According to the Study and Work 2012 survey conducted by Elsevier magazine research and SEO Economic Research, students who entered the labor market this year earn less than a year ago and the chances of getting hired on a permanent basis is historically low.
The unemployment rate for higher education graduates is still below the national average of six per cent: for HBO graduates the unemployment rate is four percent, for university graduates it is five percent. The figures mean that each year 22,000 newly qualified higher education graduates find job positions below their educational level.
Elsevier writes that mainly students of the humanities start in jobs below their education level. In higher professional education it is mostly former students of social studies, social work and art therapy who end up in a job where their degree was not necessary.
