Underemployment involves hiring a person to carry out tasks in a position lower than that which they should occupy according to their training and background.
Underemployment is a verb that refers to hiring a person to perform tasks in a position lower than the one they should occupy according to their background, ability and training. The act and the consequence of this action are referred to as underemployment .
Underemployment usually appears when the labor market faces difficulties and there are not enough positions to employ each person according to their abilities . Suppose that a recently graduated architect cannot find work in the field of his profession . In this way, he ends up accepting a position in a restaurant and begins to work as a waiter . In this case, the restaurant makes the decision to underemploy the architect, who, in reality, has sufficient studies to carry out another type of work.
Consequences of underemployment
The individual who is underemployed receives less income than he or she should receive based on his or her studies and experience .
Underemployment also affects people with a lower level of training: if an architect works as a waiter, the uneducated individual who could occupy that position is likely to be left out of the labor market .
Excess demand
This phenomenon occurs especially with the careers and professions that set trends in each era, since the majority of students flock to them and this generates an excess of demand in a particular sector, with a consequent lack of supply.
Specialists on the issue of underemployment point out various ways to solve it, one of them being to improve communication between educational centers and companies to maintain control over the number of people trained in each field.
One of the underlying problems that also leads to underemployment is the low demands on the part of certain universities, which give degrees to students who have not made enough effort, or who do not have the necessary level to perform responsibly and effectively. in the world of work .
When there is an excess of labor demand, many companies tend to underemploy and thus there are graduates who do not get a job linked to their studies.
Another use of underemployment
There is also talk of underemployment when an employee works a few hours a week or without regularity . This small number of hours worked is reflected in the income received by the worker who, in addition, has idle time . The situation reveals a failure or imbalance in the labor market, since it does not efficiently take advantage of the available resources.
The opposite situation is not positive either, and is very common in times of crisis, since many people desperately accept any job opportunity, without demanding decent conditions . Contracts that exceed the maximum number of weekly hours allowed by law are not at all rare, and that only declare a fraction of them, also affecting other rights of the employee, such as their contributions.
Although in theory it seems difficult to believe that a person would be willing to accept poor and unfair working conditions , in practice it is more common than the opposite situation and occurs especially in jobs that do not require university degrees, which adds a burden of contempt and discrimination to the problem.
The tendency to underemploy is reversed when the necessary positions are created for each individual to find a full-time job in accordance with their background and expectations.
Differences with outsourcing
It is important to note that this term is often confused with outsourcing , even though their meanings are very different.
When a person or a company subcontracts someone, it offers them work that has been awarded to them through a first contract with another entity. Subcontracting is very common in the business environment, and allows large companies to delegate certain responsibilities to third parties , such as cleaning, technical service and even expanding the workforce.