44 .Education, Labor Market,and Development
The college graduates among the unemployed stood at 16percent, bigger than the proportion of elementary graduates (13 percent) (Table 16).The proportion of those with at least high school or college diplomas among the unemployed was higher than the corresponding figure among the employed. In terms of the averageyears of schooling, this pattern translates to an increase from 8.1 to 9 years between 1976and 2000. This is higher than the average years of schooling of the employed. This difference in average schooling of unemployed and the employed peaked to more than 2 years in the 1980, which has since declined, albeit slowly. Given that investments in education continue to rise, it appears that students seem to consider the slow employment generation as a temporary phenomenon. Such proportion includes those who are waiting for better jobs. Canlas (1992) says many of the educated are currently unemployed by choice. Accordingly, they are in the process of searching for better job offers and that this search could be paQ of their investments. Nevertheless, the large and increasing proportion of the educated unemployed is disturbing, to say the least.
Educationof the underemployed Among the underemployed IIthe educatedare also heavily represented.The proportion of the underemployed who are at least college graduates increased from 23 percent to 37 percent between 1976and 2000 (Figure 8). (There are no readily available sex-disaggregated data on the underemployed.) While the proportion of the underemployed who are at least high school graduates continued to increase from 23 percent in 1976 to 37 percent in 2000, the underemployed among those who are at least college graduates has not changed much in the last 25 years, hovering " Refersto thosewhowantedadditionalhoursorwork.