The latest results from the European Union (EU) labour force survey show that employed foreign citizens are more likely than nationals to be over-qualified for their job. In 2020, the EU over-qualification rate was 41.4% for non-EU citizens and 32.3% for citizens of other EU Member States. By contrast, the over-qualification rate for nationals stood at 20.8%.
Across the EU Member States, the highest share of over-qualified non-EU citizens was recorded in 2020 in Greece (71.6%), followed by Italy (66.5%), Spain (57.1%) and Cyprus (55.9%). For citizens of other EU Member States, the highest shares of over-qualified workers were also recorded in Italy (47.8%), Cyprus (47.7%) and Spain (47.2%). The share of over-qualified employed national citizens was the highest in Spain (34.5%), Cyprus (30.5%) and Greece (30.4%).
Luxembourg reported the lowest over-qualification rates overall in 2020, regardless of the citizenship of the workers; with 3.2% for over-qualified nationals, 3.5% for citizens of other EU Member States and 10.8% for non-EU citizens.
A comparison of over-qualification rates between the sexes reveals that there was a gender gap in the EU for all three types of citizenship.
In 2020, the over-qualification rate among nationals was 1.0 percentage point higher for women than for men; the gap between the sexes was wider for citizens of other EU Member States and for non-EU citizens (6.0 points and 6.4 points respectively).
As regards the comparison by age group, in 2020 in the EU, over-qualification rates for non-EU citizens and citizens of other EU Member States were generally higher among older (aged 35-64 years) rather than younger (aged 20-34 years) people, whereas the situation for nationals was reversed.
The over-qualification rate for older non-EU citizens was 9.4 percentage points higher than the corresponding rate for younger non-EU citizens. For citizens of other EU Member States this gap was smaller at 2.2 percentage points.
By contrast, the over-qualification rate for nationals was higher among younger people than it was for older people, a difference of 4.6 percentage points.
