“Teachers working as nannies despite overcrowded classrooms, doctors cleaning bedpans in short-staffed hospitals and engineers delivering foot on motorcycles despite crumbling infrastructure. Across Europe, millions of migrants are over-qualified for jobs,” Lighthouse Reports writes in an investigation co-published with The Financial Times and El Pais.
It turns out that 47.5% of college-educated immigrants across Europe are over-qualified for their jobs, vs. 32.9% of natives, according to the report.*
In terms of migrants’ over-qualification, under-employment, unemployment, and income, it’s apparently “the worst” in Norway and Sweden, as well as in Southern Europe, according to Lighthouse Reports — except Portugal, “[the] one country that consistently bucks the trend in Southern Europe where migrant-native gaps across all indicators are substantially smaller than elsewhere in the region.”
While cleaners and cashiers are the most common jobs for migrants ending up in Spain, Italy, and Greece, for example, in Portugal, the top jobs are in teaching, nursing, engineering, and finance, according to The Financial Times, which adds that those with degrees in science, computing, and math have a better chance of landing a job in their field, with a salary that’s close to a native’s, than elsewhere in Europe.
Lighthouse Reports says it’s also working with journalists brought on by Unbias the News to delve deeper into what makes Portugal different — stay tuned.
* The report is based on data from “Eurostat. 2024. “EU – Labour Force Survey Microdata 1983-2022, Release 2023.” https://doi.org/10.2907/LFS1983-2022.”
