CULTURE, LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNICATION / SERGIO CLAVERO GARCÍA, researcher del Institute for Culture and Society, Universidad de Navarra

Published in the printed version of Expansión Ed.

It is estimated that more than 20% of European workers with Education post-secondary education are overqualified for the work they perform. Thus, from the point of view of society, resources in the form of advanced training are being wasted, and from the point of view of individuals, their hard-earned skills are not being recognized as sufficiently valuable.

Looking at this last aspect, the question arises as to what criteria determine the value of our labor skills. There are two types of answer. On the one hand, in the market these skills are in fact valued according to their usefulness and competitiveness: for example, a detailed knowledge of the properties of different building materials is considered valuable (recognized in the form of work space in an architectural firm) to the extent that this knowledge is used to build houses that people want (and can) buy, and according to the knowledge of the other potential candidates for the job. From the market's point of view, having a deep knowledge on material resistance is not something meritorious or valuable in itself; factors as heterogeneous (and so out of the individual's control) as a technological revolution that modifies the modes of production, an economic crisis that substantially drops the demand for houses or a boom of architecture graduates make the same knowledge worth more, less or even nothing.

This determination of the value of labor qualifications by the market contrasts with the assessment that the person who possesses them makes of them. When valuing his or her skills, the worker does not only take into account their usefulness or competitiveness, but also the fact that their acquisition is the result of a long and costly process, in which he or she has had to invest a substantial amount of time, money and energy. In the case of overqualified workers, a certain frustration is understandable in not seeing so much effort and sacrifice sufficiently recognized. This feeling is accentuated by the fact that qualifications have been obtained largely through a socially regulated and promoted process: not only do the various social agents (governments, universities, civil society itself...) encourage us to acquire an advanced training , but in most cases they are in charge of organizing and certify this process. Thus, we have Degrees and university masters with regulations that strictly fix the issue number of credits to be passed, a Common European framework of reference letter for languages, etc.

We are faced with a system that encourages and regulates the acquisition of advanced skills, but then is not able to generate enough qualified work positions for workers to be able to put them on internship and see them as valuable. Moreover, as the average level of Education of the citizenry increases (without increasing at the same rate the number of skilled jobs), the value of that same training decreases. A side effect of this phenomenon is that workers are pushed to accumulate more and higher qualifications in an effort to excel in order to obtain some of the skilled work positions that do become available. In turn, this makes the requirements to obtain such positions increasingly higher, in a continuous spiral of increasing workers' qualifications and decreasing their relative value: where previously it was enough to have a university Degree to obtain a certain work, now it may also be necessary to have a Master's Degree or to speak a foreign language .

The solution to such a status is not simple. Measures such as a better distribution of resources or a reduction of the workshop labor may contribute to increasing the issue of available work jobs (either because consumption increases, because more people are used to meet the same demands, etc.). However, it is not clear to what extent these measures would make it possible to attack the root of the problem, since ultimately written request remains the issue that skills are considered as more or less meritorious and valuable depending on factors that are totally beyond our control. A more profound solution would require structural changes that would either modify the principle of merit that currently operates in the market (separating it, at least partially, from instrumental and competitive considerations) or seek ways of valuing workers' qualifications that are not linked to the idea of market success.