To think people are overeducated in the UK?

[Watdidusay]

I am raging about this too be honest and I'm not sure why.

One of the mums at the school apparently lost her corporate job 8 months ago. Found this out today when I ran into her in Lidl in the next town - she was working as a manager there.
We ended up talking later in the day and turns out four of the staff there have masters degrees or above (one has a PhD). Apparently this is a common thing people are doing now as they cant get jobs in their fields
AIBU to think we are completely over educating people in this country now?

Feeling angry I think as DS (18) tried so hard over the summer to get a job like this but am finding out now they are all being taken up by people with lots of degrees!

Taken up by people who have degrees?
You mean taken up by a Mother who took a job she is potentially overqualified for, in order to feed her kids!

I'm sure she would much prefer to be working in her chosen field that she spent thousands of pounds studying for... rather than sitting in Lidl being quizzed by you.

What would make your 18yr old DS qualify as a manager in lidl?

Someone with a master’s or PhD working at Lidl isn’t proof we’re “over-educating” people. It’s proof the job market is tight and people need to earn a living. Retail jobs aren’t reserved for 18-year-olds. Employers hire who they think fits best experience, flexibility, availability. That’s not graduates “stealing” jobs; it’s people adapting. The issue isn’t too much education. It’s underemployment and a competitive labour market.

Lidl and aldi pay very high wages, especially in the managerial roles. You cant blame her for taking a job there. Problem is there are now too many youngsters who went to Uni to study for degrees that are practically worthless in the job market.

I do not think it is possible to over educate someone.

i have been learning my whole life and I am now retired and enjoying learning music.

The average reading age of adults in the U.K. is 10. I’m fairly sure that over education isn’t an issue.

So DS wanted to walk straight into a management role? With, presumably, no previous retail or life experience?

And people with degrees in supermarket management roles aren’t there for just the summer.

Most jobs don't need a degree. It is a massive con.

We need a highly skilled workforce to attract companies to invest here. That these companies haven’t yet invested and produced the jobs is an issue, but we need the workforce in the first place.

Academia has been absolutely ripped apart so that's why people with PhDs are in lidl. I'm an academic and have also worked in retail and tbh I'd prefer the latter so maybe they just prefer it too?

But it's not over education. What academic jobs there are in my field are mostly going to Chinese applicants because at the same age they are light-years ahead in terms of work. They are so disciplined and determined. I think as a country we have become complacent and the current trend to be so disparaging about higher level education is concerning.

Oh yeah, that's the problem with the UK, overeducation 😂

Yet another thread by another poster angry her child has not walked into a job. So many threads like this, blaming DEI, the EU, and now higher education. Maybe your son just wasn’t good enough OP?

Anyone who reads those ‘things I didn’t know/things I just found out in my 40s’ threads on here would not think the UK was in any danger of being ‘over-educated’.

It's not possible to over-educate someone. The problem is that there aren't enough appropriate jobs, and presumably in your friend's case jobs that are also flexible enough to work around her family life.

An 18 year old is not going to get a job as a manager at Lidl - that would be a graduate-level job, at least. What experience does she have, to be a manager?

I don't actually believe that so many people need to be doing degrees, but that is the state of the education and job market at the moment. I suspect as fees rise and universities fail, we will see a natural reduction in the lower-level degrees (and hopefully more focus on workplace training).

My 18 year old has struggled to find an entry-level job. I am not angry at the fact that educated people have "taken" those jobs but very concerned at the state of the economy where people with advanced degrees cannot find jobs in their field. I don't think too much education is the problem in the UK...

I think we over educate people for the jobs our economy creates today.

At the same time we under skill them ( … one of the many reasons we have a productivity problem)

People conflate the two

I do think that schools are channelling kids into degree courses, frankly shit ones, because getting pupils into higher education looks good on their stats. Once upon a time only the top centiles went to university, now everybody goes, in the process gaining debt and useless degrees. There are not enogh "graduate" level jobs and commensurate salaries to accomodate all these people. So they do end up in poorly paid jobs. There are degrees and "degrees", and universities and "universities" and evey employer knows it. Meanwhile the tech colleges are gone, turned into universities churning out more shite degrees , and you cant get a plummer for love or money.
I live in a rural community. The richest people in the community are tradesmen who are booked out months in advance. We have PhDs driving the buses.

My kids are at that stage and they are firmly in that "must go to uni" mind set thats been drummed into them. The degrees they are looking at are nothing degrees. I would much prefer that they waited until they were a bit older, got some life experience and then made the decision to go or not. But they wont because the school has them brain washed. I feel like school leavers are nothing but money generating fodder for universities.

Education is amazing. We shouldn’t take it for granted but instead rejoice that we are able access education. Look at countries where education is not so readily available and see what it’s like to live there.

I don’t know what these micky mouse degrees are and I don’t know what people are talking about tbh.

Last week I was literally saying to DP (amongst news of yet more redundancies from professionals we know) that actually the media study kids are going to be the only ones laughing (in relation to that previously being sniggered at as being useless).

So if that’s turned out to be one of the most valuable skills now in modern life then which ones are Mickey mouse? I wouldn’t have thought English is!? That’s a classic surely

Our economy isn’t producing enough graduate jobs. It’s part of why our productivity is so low and we’re becoming rapidly poorer.

this explores some of the issues: wonkhe.com/blogs/if-the-graduate-premium-is-falling-supply-side-tinkering-wont-bring-it-back/

Posters on here are fond of saying that the UK is the sixth largest economy in the world. But our per capita GDP is low and falling. Sixth largest means very little - India is the fifth largest, and is a developing nation.

If people are studying for useless degrees, then this is what happens. It’s not a secret and the term ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees didn’t come from nowhere.

I thought manager roles at Aldi and Lidl involved a competitive recruitment process? I don’t think an average 18 year old would get through the sift.

Also the Mum may have felt judged by you OP for working in a supermarket and keen to explain that her and her colleagues are not stupid people.

I also have a young person who can't find a part time job. Because minimum wage and employment taxes have increased, employers are obviously taking higher skilled people or not replacing staff.
A person's level of education is less relevant to experience.

I worked in NHS management for a while and given the number of Directors on six figure salaries who are both barely literate and comprehensively, mind-bogglingly, innumerate I wouldn't say that overeducation is a problem.

What is problematic here is matching workforce skills to vacancies, never mind any kind of training and skills planning for future needs.

🤣

Surely it doesn't matter whether someone has 3 degrees or none, they're working a job so it isn't available at this time to anyone else. Being highly educated, I'd say it's more likely she'll move up or on, thus creating a vacancy.