Graduates who take stop-gap jobs after leaving university can get so depressed by the boredom of their work that they damage their proper career chances, according to research.

They would be better off staying on the dole, the study says. After nine months of low-grade work, graduates were more distressed, less motivated and more likely to fall into depression than those who were unemployed.

Motivation was so low among graduates who had typically taken jobs in restaurants, shops or lower-level clerical work that they had mostly given up hope of getting into their chosen profession. Those who were not working remained far more optimistic that they would soon get the break they needed to start their career.

The findings run contrary to the received wisdom that people are always better off in work, whatever the job. The research by Tony Cassidy, of the University of Ulster, and Liz Wright, of De Montfort University, was presented to the British Psychological Society conference in Dublin yesterday.

Professor Cassidy said that the findings had serious implications for the Government, which wants half of all young people to go into higher education. “There is a lot of research on how to get more people into university and not very much on what is happening to them afterwards.

“It may be a waste of resources if these graduates are underemployed and lose their motivation,” he said. The latest figures show that 20 per cent of graduates are in nongraduate jobs. The study focused on 248 recently graduated students in the Midlands, whose psychological state was monitored using standard clinical measures.

Those in stop-gap jobs achieved lower scores on every measure, including diet, alcohol intake and sleep. “But it was their achievement motivation that was particularly in danger,” Professor Cassidy said.

“Most of the underemployed graduates had given up the idea that they were going to get into the sort of jobs their education predicted they should get into.” They were too tired or busy to take steps to get a proper job and their distress grew.

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