Students invest time and money in post-secondary education to secure employment in their chosen field of study. In the past, choices were often constrained by the type of credential (college diploma or university bachelor's degree). Albeit this decision criterion became blurred when colleges started offering bachelor's degrees. Matriculating…

We use vocational training curricula to investigate how IT skills are trained within broader "skills packages" and how these relate to labour market outcomes. Skills packages are the typical combinations of IT skills (e.g., CNC) and technical or nontechnical skills (e.g., material sciences or work safety) that are jointly required in the…

The transition from university to working life is a challenging phase for graduates. The focus in the present longitudinal study is on employability factors and their association with this transition and with early career success. The participants were 43 graduates who were interviewed at the time of their graduation and filled in a follow-up…

Employment is a crucial step in achieving independence and independent living for youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) during the transition to adulthood. However, there is limited information about perspective of stakeholders including youth on the spectrum with respect to employment. Thus, we aimed to explore stakeholders' experiences about…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) placements, undertaken as part of a higher education qualification, are recognised as a key opportunity for developing talent that is future-capable and can meet contemporary labour market demands. A workplace supervisor that can facilitate this learning is critical to the experience. The purpose of this study was to…

The link between higher education and employment is central to the understanding of social stratification and social mobility. We use three theories to analyse the importance of education and credentials in recruitment decisions in European graduate labour markets: human capital (HC), network capital (NC) and reputational capital (RC) theory.…

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the effect of different educational orientations at the upper-secondary level on labour market outcomes across European countries. The study separates safety net effect and the diversion effect of Vocational Education and Training (VET). Using PIAAC data, we show cross-national differences in the early…

Graduate employment and unemployment or underemployment are becoming increasingly important issues confronting not only global higher education research but also social and political debates in contemporary societies. In addition to the rapid social and economic changes resulting from the exponential technologies, the outbreak of the COVID-19…

Declining employment prospects of graduates have been reported in the international literature and in Hong Kong. This casts doubts on the 'employability' of graduates of an expanding higher education sector. Yet, published patterns and trends of graduate employment outcomes do not tell us much about the contextualised processes that 'match' or…

Employability development is a focus of contemporary engineering education, both abroad and in South Africa, from where this study emanates. However, pedagogic initiatives in service of this goal may fail to take into consideration the ideological underpinnings of this emphasis on employability, as well as of the curricula developed in its…

This study explores the practical placement experiences of students with disabilities who are attending professional higher education in Norway. Despite legislative regulations to promote equal opportunities, many students with disabilities face barriers to participation in higher education. In professional education, practical placement is a part…

Previous research has documented substantial overqualification and an association with social disadvantage and fields of study. Overqualification persistence has been less studied. Persistence is more important than prevalence because skill and job matches are likely to involve lags. Our data set allows us to estimate the prevalence, the…

This paper explores the perceptions of degree students at two UK universities regarding their work placement and part-time working activities, to assess if the two activities converge. The research comprises three stages: interviews for preliminary exploration of students' perceptions towards work placement and part-time work; interviews to…

Enhancing graduate employability is a priority for many stakeholders in higher education and this research explores graduates' experiences of, and attitudes towards, the inclusion of employability-related support in undergraduate degree programmes. A literature review is supplemented by primary research on a targeted sample of 104 graduates from…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been identified as a way of equipping graduates with attributes that make them work-ready. Many higher education institutions (HEIs) require their students to go through a compulsory work place learning form (WPL) of WIL. The complications of WPL can affect HEIs' student throughput. To address this challenge, a…