“They’ve done what they were supposed to do, but still can’t get ahead”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 10, 2024

OTTAWA – New research is shedding light on why frustration and anxiety are rising among working-class Canadians: they’re increasingly over-qualified for the jobs they do – jobs that don’t require university degrees, college diplomas, or other post-secondary certificates.

The Cardus report, The Frustration of Canada’s Over-Credentialed Working Class, finds:

• 56% of working-class Canadians have a post-secondary diploma that’s unnecessary for their job — up from 42% in 2006.
• The proportion of working-class Canadians with a university degree their job doesn’t require has more than doubled since 2006 to hit 19% today.

“Over-qualified folks in working-class jobs would be more fulfilled if they had professional, managerial, or technical jobs that matched their education level,” says Renze Nauta, Work & Economics Program Director at Cardus and a report co-author. “This likely contributes to the feeling that they’ve done what they were supposed to do, but still can’t get ahead. No wonder they’re feeling frustrated.”

The report notes that working-class jobs pay substantially less money than professional-, management-, and technical-class jobs. The report also finds that working-class women and immigrants are more likely to be over-qualified for their jobs than working-class men and non-immigrants.

“It’s time to fix the growing mismatch between education and working-class jobs by re-focusing and re-balancing education funding,” says Sean Speer, a report co-author, fellow at the Public Policy Forum and the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and editor at large at The Hub. “And we must improve foreign-credential recognition so that all Canadians can reach their full potential.”

The Frustration of Canada’s Over-Credentialed Working Class is freely available online.

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Daniel Proussalidis
Cardus – Director of Communications
613-899-5174
media@cardus.ca

Cardus – Imagination toward a thriving society
Cardus is a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.