Skilled labor’s test with becoming cheap labor in neoliberal process: a field study on the relationship between education and employment

One of the most important problems of employment in Turkey is the employment of graduates in fields other than they studied. In other words, it is understood that the bound between education and employment has been weakened. Although the individuals begin their undergraduate education with the anticipation and hope to be employed in the field they study, they encounter with a reality that is different from their anticipations and hopes when they graduate and become obliged to work at jobs they are able to find rather than the fields they studied. The most important reason behind this situation is the unemployment issue. High rates and duration of unemployment lead individuals to receive more education to postpone the job-seeking and unemployment process. Increasing unemployment in neoliberal process of capitalist system provides the capital with opportunity to satisfy its need for cheap labor with educated-skilled individuals and makes it possible to benefit from the skilled labor’s potential to learn the job more easily by reducing the costs of training employers on the job. Within the scope of this study, interview form consisting 25 items was administered to 22 volunteers who were working in at jobs other than they studied in Tokat. The participants’ opinions were taken in written forms, and they were analyzed using categorical analysis technique of content analysis method. In this study, it is seen that university graduates who work in jobs that are not related to the education they receive in higher education have to work in temporary and precarious jobs, and they have very low hopes for the future and hopes of doing a job related to their profession. In addition, it is seen that the state employment of university graduates and employment policies developed accordingly have not found any hope.