GRADUATES ARE hit hard by unemployment and low-level jobs, a recent study has revealed.
50 percent of graduates surveyed were over-qualified for their jobs and twenty percent were not employed at all nine months after graduating. Many of the "underemployed" worked at fast food restaurants or drove taxis instead of working in areas related to their degrees.
Holding no job affected graduates not just financially, but had serious affects on their psychological well being and health, the study found.
Underemployment was also found to reduce their motivation to achieve, lowering their chances of getting better jobs.
Professor Tony Cassidy from the University of Ulster, who co-conducted the study, said: "Considerable resources are invested to encourage students into higher education in order to enhance employability of the UK workforce.
"These resources maybe wasted if graduates are unemployed or underemployed and lose the achievement motivation to pursue the careers to which they aspire."
Professor Cassidy added that his study showed it was necessary for the Government to review its policies for widening access to higher education.
Currently the Government has set a deadline for 50 percent of all eighteen to 30-year-olds to be in higher education by 2010.
The study followed 248 recent graduates over a period of eighteen to 24 months.
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