“Luxembourg reported the lowest over-qualification rates overall in 2020, regardless of the citizenship of the workers,” according to Eurostat. Nuno Silva/Unsplash

“Luxembourg reported the lowest over-qualification rates overall in 2020, regardless of the citizenship of the workers,” according to Eurostat. Nuno Silva/Unsplash

A higher proportion of migrant workers in the EU are over-qualified than native staff, but the lowest share of mismatched skills was recorded in Luxembourg.

Foreign workers in the EU are much more likely than native residents to be over-qualified for their job.

That conclusion comes from the EU labour force survey, published by , the EU’s statistics agency, on 21 July.

Across the entire bloc, 41% of non-EU nationals employed in the EU were over qualified in 2020, compared to 32.3% of EU nationals living in another member state and 20.8% of local citizens.

However, Luxembourg registered the smallest over-qualification gap, across all three categories, in the entire bloc. Only 10.8% of non-EU citizens, 3.5% of EU nationals and 3.2% of Luxembourgers working in the grand duchy were over-qualified, Eurostat said.

The biggest gaps were recorded in Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus.

Across the EU, the over-qualification rate was slightly higher for women and for older workers.