Overeducation, underemployment and job satisfaction: a study of Finnish hotel receptionists

Abstract

The shortage of people with adequate skills to fill jobs in the hotel and catering industry has been a subject of debate recently. However, less attention has been paid to the reverse of this problem; the consequences of overeducation for the jobs available. This paper focuses on the hotel industry in Finland; a country where a relatively high proportion of young people stay on into further and higher education. The Finnish economy is currently in recession and over 30% of all 15 to 25 year olds are unemployed (Statistics Finland August 1993). As increasingly well qualified people chase the few jobs available, many settle for jobs that have been traditionally filled by less educated people. Do these people feel that their skills are underutilized? How does ‘overeducation’ affect attitudes to work? This paper reports the results of a research study of receptionists in first category hotels in the Helsinki region which examined the relationships between overeducation, underemployment and job satisfaction. However, although this study focuses on Finland, similar problems may be faced in other countries where there is increasing provision of high level educational courses without a similar expansion in the number of high skill jobs.