with a college degree may be tending bar, or working as a factory assembly line worker. That may result from the existence of unemployment, which makes workers with bills to pay (and responsibilities) take almost any jobs available, even if they do not use their full talents. That can also occur with individuals who are being discriminated against, lack appropriate trade certification or academic degrees (such as a high school or college diploma), have disabilities or mental illnesses, or have served time in prison. Two common situations that can lead to underemployment are immigrants and new graduates. When highly trained immigrants arrive in a country, their foreign credentials may not be recognized or accepted in their new country, or they may have to do a lengthy or costly re-credentialing process. As a result, when doctors or engineers from other countries immigrate, they may be unable to work in their profession, and they may have to seek menial work. New graduates may also face underemployment because even though they have completed the technical training for a given field for which there is a good job market, they lack experience. Recent graduates with a master's degree in accounting or business administration may have to work in a low-paid job as a barista or store clerk, which does not require a university degree, until they are able to find work in their professional field. Another example of underemployment is someone who holds high skills for which there is low market-place demand. While it is costly in terms of money and time to acquire academic credentials, many types of degrees, particularly those in the liberal arts, produce significantly more graduates than can be properly employed. Employers have responded to the oversupply of graduates by raising the academic requirements of many occupations higher than is really necessary to perform the work. A number of surveys show that skill-based underemployment in North America and Europe can be a long-lasting phenomenon. If university graduates remain in a prolonged state of underemployment, the skills they gained from their degrees can atrophy from disuse or become out of date. For example, a person who graduates with a PhD in English literature has advanced research and writing skills when they graduate, but if they work as a store clerk for a number of years, these skills may atrophy from disuse. Similarly, technically specialized workers may find themselves unable to acquire