Drawing on labour force survey data on the level of education and occupations of all employed workers in over 130 countries, the ILO estimates that globally only about half of these workers hold jobs corresponding to their level of education. The remainder are either overeducated or undereducated for their jobs. How does this trend play out for the focus countries/economies of the ILO Office for Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia¹ (hereafter: ILO CEE Focus countries)?

ILOSTAT data show that:

• Only six out of ten workers in ILO CEE Focus countries hold jobs corresponding to their level of education,
• Women in ILO CEE Focus countries are slightly more likely than men to be undereducated, while women in EU27² are more likely to be overeducated,
• Self-employed workers are more likely to be undereducated than the wage earners,
• In most countries, the percentage of workers with an advanced level of education is lower than the percentage of jobs requiring such a level of education pointing at a need to invest more into education and skills matching, and
• About 75 per cent of unemployed have intermediate or advanced level of education.

Only six out of ten workers in ILO CEE Focus countries hold jobs corresponding to their level of education. The remining 4 workers are either overeducated or undereducated. This is very similar to the pattern of matching in EU27.
Figure 1: Proportion of matched, overeducated and undereducated workers, by sex (percentage)
Note: Unweighted averages of data for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, referring to 2020 or the most recent year.
Source: https://ilostat.ilo.org/

Both women and men face difficulties matching their education to jobs

The difficulty of finding a job matching their educational level concerns both women and men. On average, there doesn’t seem to be a strong gender bias in workers’ mismatch by level of education. Nonetheless, women in ILO CEE Focus countries are slightly more likely than men to be undereducated, while women in EU27 are more likely to be overeducated. The most significant differences between women and men can be found in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Albania. In Bosnia and Herzegovina 6.3% more women than men are undereducated, in Albania it is the other way round with 12.7 % more women than men being overeducated.

Self-employed are more likely to be undereducated than the wage earners

Wage earners in ILO CEE Focus countries have a considerably higher overeducation rate than the self-employed (Figure 2, which disaggregates matching rates by employment status). About 25 per cent of wage earners and 15 percent of self-employed are overeducated.
The undereducation, however, is more prevalent among the self-employed. Although for some self-employed persons, such as own account workers and employers, the level of education is not the most important criterion for running a business, a large share of the undereducated in low income countries is made up of contributing family workers who have lower levels of education.

Figure 2: Proportion of matched, overeducated and undereducated workers, by employment status (percentage)

Note: Unweighted averages of data for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, referring to 2020 or the most recent year.
Source: https://ilostat.ilo.org/

In all countries there is a significant discrepancy between the proportion of workers with advanced education and the proportion of jobs requiring such a level of educational attainment

When looking specifically at the proportion of jobs that require an advanced level of education and the proportion of workers who have such education, we observe that in all countries there is a significant discrepancy. In 5 out of 6 countries, the proportion of jobs that require advanced level of education exceeds the proportion of highly educated workers. This suggests that policies are required to raise the level of education of those in high skilled jobs.

Figure 3: Proportion of workers in high skilled occupations compared to proportion of workers with an advanced level of education (percentage)
Source: https://ilostat.ilo.org/

About 75 per cent of unemployed have intermediate or advanced level of education
When looking at the level of education of unemployed, we observe that in all countries, except in the Republic of Moldova, about 75 per cent of unemployed have intermediate or advanced level of education, and less than 20 per cent only basic education. The percentage of those with less than basic education is insignificant. This means that in order to address the unemployment, there is a need to create more jobs that require at least intermediate level of education.

Figure 4: Distribution of unemployed by level of education (percentage)


Key conclusions

Both women and men in ILO CEE Focus countries and EU27 face difficulties matching their education to jobs. Undereducation and overeducation coexist. In order to reduce any form of mismatch, it is necessary to understand the causes of both overeducation and undereducation among different population groups (such as women and men, young and older people, migrant workers). Such information is essential for macroeconomic and human resources development planning and the formulation of appropriate policies that target both labour supply and labour demand.

ILO CEE Focus Countries need to build stronger bridges between the needs of the labour markets and the planning and provision of education opportunities. This calls for more investment and better skills needs anticipation systems to understand the demand for qualifications and skills, translate it into adaptive educational planning and in particular to raise the level of education of workers for high skilled jobs in competitive industries. In addition, career guidance and effective incentives are needed to orient young people towards occupations with good job prospects within their own countries.

The mismatch by level of education is aggravated by other forms of skills mismatch, such as field of study, skills gaps and skills obsolence. Measuring levels of educational attainment is only one way to approach the complexity of skills mismatches.

Author: Valentina Stoevska, Senior Statistician in the ILO Department of Statistics.



¹No data available for Ukraine.
²Aggerates for EU27 are based on data for 25 countries as no data are available for Germany and Slovakia.