Close to one in five working people in Slovakia have higher qualifications than required for their jobs. This follows from an analysis that Poštová Banka has drawn up based on figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) going back to the situation in 2012 and released on Thursday.
“This group (of overqualified people) includes many Slovak high-school, college and university graduates who didn't choose the right major – one which is sought-after by employers,” the bank's analyst Eva Sadovska said. The overqualified people who are stuck in their jobs are therefore facing difficulties in looking for a new job, which is further compounded by the high unemployment rate in Slovakia. “Many people who want to work end up being willing to take on a job where lower qualifications are normally enough,” said Sadovska. Another reason for the state of affairs lies in the insufficient links between the education system and the labour market. Each year there are more graduates joining the labour market whose education is not what employers require, said the analyst. Twenty-four countries were included in the survey. Slovakia's ratio of people who are overqualified for what they do wasn't among the worst, however. The list was topped by Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland. Italy and the Netherlands were on the opposite end of the scale.
