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!

I’m not sure your points actually make any sense. You’re angry people with degrees (and lives and families) are “taking up” jobs you want your 18y
old son to have?
There isn’t anything to suggest these people would still be hired over your son whether they had a degree or not?

”raging” is an insane over reaction to finding out 5 staff members at Lidl have a masters degree.

Lidl actually have a very successful and well paying graduate program so they clearly value educated staff member and are prepared to pay them accordingly. Perhaps the issue is your son is under educated?

This is what happens…? What exactly? Th educated staff potentially got the position over uneducated 18 year olds? And that’s a problem?

I joke that I literally did a "mickey mouse degree" in animation and then a specialised masters in computer animation after a couple of years freelancing after my BA. I have had a 17 year career in the animation industry since, doing my hobby for a job in an incredibly profitable industry for this country. People sneer at certain degrees but quite frankly I don't think there's really such a thing as a useless degree, the experience of university itself was worth it for me. I came from a working class background and it opened my horizons.

OP, the economy and jobs market is pretty fucked at the moment and we probably are on the cusp of the next "crash" (since there tends to be an 18 year cycle for economic crashes, give or take) but I assure you education is not the problem.

When you say 'we are over-educating' who is the 'we' you are referring to? Because anything above A-Levels is entirely funded by the individual. So it's their choice, their money, their education. Should we suppress people's desire to educate themselves just so your kids can get a job in a shop? (Although I am still struggling to see why anyone with an education is the problem here).

Is it mean to suggest this is batshit and you could probably do with a bit more education yourself...?

Having a degree wouldn't give you an edge over other candidates in that situation. Often it goes against you as the interviewer assumes you'll be moving on as soon as a "better" opportunity comes along.

Some people maybe over educated for the roles they're in, but in general I think we're under educated with a poor attitude towards education in this country. Under 20 percent of kids achieve 5 C+ GCSEs (sorry I can't remember the number equivalent) at our local school.

Managing a large retail store is only for the intelligent. Employment and food safety laws are complex and evolving.

Not Sure why you would think an 18 year old could do it.

Why you think your 18 year old deserves the position more than anyone else baffles me. 13 years ago in my early twenties I had an undergrad degree and a teaching degree but I worked evenings in a stationary shop as I didn't have enough teaching hours yet to pay the rent. Would I have liked at that point to be full time in a school and not be juggling jobs, yes. But I had to live somewhere and eat. Your 18 year old will find a job like all of us did but to be raging at people with degrees who are just trying to make ends meet is riddiculous. Your 18 year old could easily be that person some day.

I'm kind of nonplussed about what you think the actual problem is. You've got it completely arse about face.

University is pushed way too much in the UK. One of my kids went and is now doing a job that has nothing to do with their degree and isn't paying more because she has one. And there's the student loan debt issues too. It's mad.
One of my kids/nieces/nephews out of a total of 8 has a job related to their degree.
Another of my kids is trying to go down the apprenticeship route. So many of them want experience in that field. Even for level 2 or 3. What's the decking point in apprenticeships if you have to have experience first. And don't start saying get some voluntary experience because he tried that with relevant orgs and charities and they weren't interested

What a craaazy take on it all. 😂

No 18 year old is going to become a retail manager straight away unless they know someone who can pull some strings. Most of us have worked our way up and started as a customer assistant, I wouldn’t even take him on as a shift leader/supervisor without the relevant experience because the staff he’d be supervising would have more knowledge than him.

Does your DS want to work in retail? If so, he just needs to keep applying for anything to get a start then he can hopefully progress. At 18 he's ideally placed to take the less popular jobs with the unsociable hours that older people with families may struggle to do.
Or did he just want a summer job, until he started his own degree? Because if that's the case, you might want to share your concerns with him. Because doing an apprenticeship to gain skills may help reduce the 'over education' problem you're worried about and make him more employable.

The issue in the UK isn't that we are overeducated, it's that the graduate level jobs just aren't there. In the US and many EU countries the high skilled jobs market is much stronger so graduates can still access graduate level jobs. In the UK (thanks Brexit) this is no longer the case, so large numbers of graduates are taking non graduate level jobs. Blame successive governments for not recognizing the problem. Sadly AI is also displacing increasing numbers of entry level graduate jobs, so you can expect the situation to get worse.

I used to be a zoo keeper. I was often asked by parents visiting with their kids how I became a zoo keeper. They were astounded when I said I was educated to postgraduate level in the area, as are many (not all but it's common) who work in zoos as keepers.

This doesn’t make sense. Your 18 year old was looking last summer but didn’t get a job, so presume they have now got another job or are in education otherwise why stop looking?

The job like that was filled, at some point over the past 8 months, and because that mum doing the job mentioned many working in that one store have further qualifications you are now raging? Is that right?

If your 18 year old hasn’t found work didn’t you ask her to let you know if any vacancies come up? Might depend on how well you know her but if she is the store manager surely she could become a potential employer rather than internally raging?

Education and employment are two different things.

I work with loads of people who have multiple degrees but some of them don’t have the correct attributes to make them successful in the modern workplace.

Quite.

Until recently I was a firm believer that a lot of degrees were a waste of time and money because I saw so many graduates unable to find jobs in their chosen field.

Now I watch people attend Tommy Robinson speeches, attach flags to poles, and stare lovingly at Farage. This has changed my mind. I now believe everyone should attend uni to broaden their minds and get out of their echo chamber of immediate family and friends. It's no coincidence that people who would never dream of voting for Reform are educated beyond school level.

Browse Facebook for an hour then come back and tell us we're over educating people.

Looking at the type of degrees are available, especially in Clearing after results day, I honestly think that too many people are doing pointless degrees, lumbering themselves with huge debts and finish up doing jobs they could have done without a degree. University maybe a great experience but at some point we have to ask if it's worth it. Apprenticeships would be a better path for many students.

@Watdidusay sadly, I think you have this the wrong way round. Many people are overqualified for the jobs available. They are under-educated compared to the level of their qualifications.

I despair that I see applications from high numbers of post grads with Masters degrees who are unable to construct grammatically correct sentences or work out the correct formula to get the right answer on an Excel spreadsheet.

A GCSE applicant with an aptitude for literacy and numeracy has better foundation skills and generally is better educated. If they know how to meet and greet and can articulate their answers well, they are better educated.

Something has gone very wrong indeed.

No-one can be overeducated. Education is power and knowledge, it’s not necessarily anything to do with your job, in fact you’re very lucky if it is.

This !! Facebook is a terrifying place these days.

YABU and dead wrong too.

I mean someone who has recently done a masters or a postgrad has only completed their GCSEs several years ago so the idea that a gcse student is “more educated” or had a better foundation than someone who has done both is just nonsensical.
You’re making conclusions from things that are irrelevant, someone can be more or less suitable for a role but that’s not always relevant to their education. Why are you concluding that someone with a masters should know an excel formula? The vast majority of degrees will have nothing to do with excel. That doesn’t make them less educated.