‘Brain waste’: overqualification highest in Spain, Turkey, Greece

About a third of workers in Spain, Turkey and Greece were overqualified for their jobs in 2023, according to European Union statistical office Eurostat, while non-EU citizens experienced the highest rates of overqualification across the bloc.

In Spain, 35.8 per cent of employed people worked in “low- or medium-skilled occupations” while holding a tertiary level qualification, with the same figure standing at 35.7 per cent in Turkey and 31.4 per cent in Greece. The average across the EU was 22 per cent.

Among non-EU citizens working in Europe, 39.5 per cent were overqualified for their roles; for EU citizens working in a different EU country, the rate was 31.4 per cent, while about a fifth of nationals were overqualified.

The group with the highest level of overqualification was non-EU citizens working in Greece: 69.6 per cent of this population was overqualified. Rates were similar among non-EU citizens in Italy, at 64.1 per cent.

“Tertiary-educated persons who are foreign-born or foreign citizens have a less favourable employment situation throughout the period from 2014 to 2023,” a Eurostat report says. “Compared to native-born individuals or nationals, it is more likely that their formal qualifications are not fully used in the labour market.”

Maria Elo, professor of international business and entrepreneurship at the University of Southern Denmark, told Times Higher Education that overqualification “is a cost both for society and the individual”, using the term “brain waste” to describe the phenomenon.

“We are investing in people who then cannot use the talent and skills that they have,” she said. “This is an economic issue and a social issue as well.”

Non-EU citizens may experience particularly high rates of overqualification because their qualifications are not recognised in their destination country, Professor Elo said, citing “discriminatory practices because of a lack of understanding or knowledge”.

Despite EU efforts to harmonise recognition of qualifications across the union, she added, some EU citizens may also find their education undervalued after moving countries. “In the EU, the principle is that we have free movement of labour,” she said. “But there’s still quite a lot of work to do in making these transitions smoother.”

In countries like Germany, where the overqualification rate among EU citizens of another country exceeded that of non-EU citizens in 2023, targeted migration policies are often at play, Professor Elo explained. “Some countries target particular professions,” she said, citing doctors, dentists and IT specialists as examples. “When these people arrive, they have fewer barriers to entering the labour market because they are earmarked for certain professions.”

In comparison, EU citizens moving countries through the free movement principle, without need of a targeted policy, “are not coming to fill a gap”, she said, and thus may find it more difficult to find a job matching their education level.

Language barriers are another contributor to overqualification, Professor Elo said, noting that highly qualified people with limited proficiency in the local language often struggle to find employment matching their education level. Countries employing multiple administrative and official languages often demonstrate lower rates of overqualification, she said, pointing to Luxembourg, where just 5.6 per cent of citizens of another EU country were overqualified in 2023.

High levels of overqualification among nationals – Spain and Greece, for instance, had rates of more than 30 per cent in 2023 – often resulted from a mismatched education system and labour market. In Greece, Professor Elo noted, “There is a lot of appreciation for education, but it doesn’t mean that the labour market, especially after the economic crisis, is able to accommodate all this talent.”

Addressing overqualification is particularly urgent, Professor Elo said, given the European Union’s rapidly ageing population. “We have less talent in the pipeline for the labour market, so we need a system to supply that talent,” she said.

“We cannot afford to have discriminatory, malfunctioning systems that waste resources. There are not enough people.”  

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com