UK Graduates Forced into Low-Skilled Jobs

A report has revealed that graduates are more likely to work in lower-skilled jobs than graduates a decade ago, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The report shows that 35 percent of recent graduates are employed in lower-skilled jobs - up from 26 percent in 2001.

The data reveals that in the last three months of 2011 nearly one fifth of graduates, 18.9 percent, were unemployed.

"The recession has hit the job prospects of recent graduates but they are still nearly 20 percent more likely to be in work than people without degrees," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

"A lack of high-quality jobs has forced more graduates into lower-skilled jobs over the last decade.

"Raising the skills of UK workers must be accompanied with an industrial strategy focused on boosting high-value industries such as manufacturing. Otherwise public investment in education and the talents of UK graduates will be wasted."

The report defies lower-skilled jobs as jobs that "tend to require competence only through compulsory education".

In the final quarter of 2011, 86 percent of all graduates were in work compared with 72.3 percent of those without a degree.