Dr John Neugebauer, Visiting Fellow, Bristol Business School
How often do we step back to think critically and analytically about the issue of graduate employability? Here are some personal thoughts, based on my own experience in senior management in human resources, as an academic who has also been involved in higher education (HE) Knowledge Exchange, and most recently as a co-editor of the forthcoming SAGE Handbook of Graduate Employability.
Much Achieved Already
Strenuous efforts have been made across the HE sector to improve employability and knowledge exchange. Many employers have sought to improve graduate prospects. And, of course, graduates themselves are better prepared within the UK.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that tertiary education averaged across 22 OECD countries is 45% and for the UK 56% (OECD, 2021 P43). According to the OECD, graduate status is also linked with the broader society benefits, such as positive development of employment, higher per capita income, and health and social outcomes (OECD, 2021).
For the UK, Higher Education (HE) statistics for 2021 seem suitably reassuring:
The employment rate for working-age graduates (aged 16 – 64) was 86.7%, for postgraduates 88.2%; and for non-graduates 70.2%;
The median salary premium for graduates over non-graduates was £10,000 and £16,000 for postgraduates;
65.2% of working-age graduates, and 77.4% of postgraduates were in high-skilled employment. For non-graduates the figure was 24.3% (ONS, 2022
Despite popularist nay-sayers, the value of Higher/Tertiary Education is valued, not only in the UK, but also globally.
But we don’t need to look very far to hear criticisms of graduate employability, and challenges for the future. Here are some personal views on issues which HE can still address.
Do we understand what future skills graduates need?
Across the overall global labour market (including non-graduates) the World Economic Forum (WEF) expects 85 million jobs to be displaced, but 97 million new roles to emerge, by 2025. (WEF, 2020). To respond to changing labour market requirements and the need for reskilling and retraining, the WEF places its emphasis on critical thinking and analysis, problem-solving, self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility (WEF, 2020). These are skills which higher education should be well equipped to deliver.
Understanding employers’ needs, especially the needs of smaller organisations
UK employment markets for graduates depend on a combination of open market (advertising roles then hoping to fill them), and varying degrees of organisational-HE relationships to co-operate in understanding needs and seeking to achieve an appropriate level of supply. But one significant area where scoping employment demand and supply is especially difficult is with smaller employer destination organisations.
Within the UK, the Federation of Small Businesses, (2021) claims that small and medium sized organisations account for three fifths of total employment and around half of economic turnover in the UK private sector; 48% of employment is within small organisations, employing less than 50 people.
Employers themselves, HE institutions, Local Enterprise Partnerships may seek to understand graduate requirements. But it is difficult to bring together a comprehensive and cohesive strategy in such a fragmented employment market.
Inclusion
Graduates enter an employment market where challenges of inclusion are similar to those of the wider workforce; other barriers are specific to higher education.
Gender pay gaps remain evident across all UK sectors of graduate employment (ONS, 2022 ; CIPD, 2017). The WEF (2020) has also reported that without proactive efforts, inequality is likely to be exacerbated by the dual impact of technology and the pandemic recession. Chapter submissions for the Handbook also highlighted researched challenges based on ethnicity, and disabilities, where UK opportunities continued to favour white British graduates, and those who are non-disabled (ONS 2022).
Class and/or elitism continues at all levels of the employment market, including opportunities for graduates. ‘Elite universities’ produce the highest returns, and draw ‘top’ employers to their graduates (for example, see Rivera, 2015, Sullivan, et. al., 2018, Berghaus, 2020). In the UK, media and even Government ministers stoke the devaluation of some HE courses, for example by speaking about international students ‘…propping up, frankly, substandard courses at inadequate institutions’ (Smyth 2022).
This might be changing, but very slowly. For example, PwC, the accounting and consulting group which recruits 2,000 graduates a year, has recently announced its intention to extend its campus visiting programme from 75 to over 100, drop the requirement for a 2.1 degree or higher, and no longer insist that graduate recruits should have first undertaken an internship with PwC. Along with similar plans for employers in the sector, it will also extend their remote/virtual outreach to undergraduates (Saunders, 2022).
Despite these public pronouncements, my own experience discussing graduate opportunities with a range of high-profile employers suggests a continued preference for ‘top’ universities. We will need to see more actual evidence of the positive impact of these wider resourcing pools.
Macro-economic timing mismatches
The African Union Agenda 2063 sets goals to revitalise and expand tertiary education, research and innovation, so as to address continental challenges and promote global competitiveness across its member states. (African Unity, 2013). Even so, The Economist (2019a) reports that these worthy objectives are often frustrated – graduates are leaving universities in Africa, but a lack of inward investment and opportunity limits their ability to work at professional level within Africa. The Economist (2019b) similarly reported on difficulties which students China encountered finding graduate level roles
A more radical response from HE?
And in case we might feel at ease- even comfortable- about the state of graduate employability, what might we think of more radical measures?
In a comprehensive review of graduate readiness for employment in Australia, Pennington, and Stanford, (2019) set out the opportunities, but considerable challenges, facing Australian graduates (even before Covid 19 global disruption). They comment on the demands for universities to produce candidates who are ready for roles but challenge the ‘distortions’ caused by employers’ expectations of graduates “fully formed” from the day they start work (P 99). However, Pennington, and Stanford, (2019) noted that 78% of Australian employers regarded post placement/internship graduates as better prepared, but that such opportunities had reduced by 25% to 29%.
This observation appears to be replicated elsewhere. For example, in the UK, the Institute of Student Employers (2021) continued to criticise a perceived lack of graduate employability skills such as lack of self-career management, poor team skills, and poor upward management of the manager. (Ironically, human resource managers might observe that some of those perceived deficient skills, were not confined to graduates, recent or otherwise.)
Little wonder that apprenticeships, apprenticeship degrees, and simply entering the workplace without a degree are seen as legitimate other options to studying for a degree. How also will degree related apprenticeships develop? As we evaluate widening experience of these, is there really any reason why they should not be just as robust academically as more conventional degree courses? And if they are, how willingly and capably would all stakeholders (HE, employers, students) transition to this model? For example, how could an extension in workplace internships or placements, not necessarily linked with an extension in the time of a degree course, make more intensive use of the 20 weeks a year when most students are not in class?
Conclusion
Higher education is a big, international and global business, and not just for the Universities. Students invest life years, money and commitment to their futures. Employer organisations offer opportunities. Wider societies benefit.
But we cannot allow the progress achieved over the past few decades to be an ‘end’ position. The journey of learning, discovery, and improvement continues. You might not agree with some ideas in this blog – but I hope that it will continue to stimulate our appetite to develop research and practice in this important area of HE activity.
If you are interested in the above, please contact John at john.neugebauer@uwe.ac.uk
References
CIPD (2017) The graduate employment gap: expectations versus reality, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London
Federation of Small Businesses (2021) UK Small Business Statistics Take from https://www.fsb.org.uk/uk-small-business-statistics.html on 22 October 2022
Institute of Student Employers (2021) Graduates lack work-ready skills that businesses need during Covid era, reports ISE Student Development Survey, available at https://ise.org.uk/page/graduates-lack-work-ready-skills-that-businesses-need-during-covid-era?msclkid=6649341abb6811ec93011f03070489b1
ONS ( 2022) Calendar Year 2021, Graduate labour market statistics. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-labour-markets (taken from the web 22 October 2022)
Pennington, A. and Stanford, J. (2019), The Future of Work for Australian Graduates: The Changing Landscape of University Employment Transitions in Australia, The Australia Institute, Centre for Future Work, Canberra
Rivera, L. A. (2015) Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey
Saunders, T (2022) PwC expands university visits in the race for new recruits The Times 5 October 2022
Smyth, C (2022) Ministers may cap number of children foreign students can bring to UK’ Sunday Times, 9 October 2022
Sullivan, A., Parsons, S., Green, F., Wiggins, R.D., Ploubidis, G. (2018) Elite universities, fields of study and top salaries: Which degree will make you rich? Volume 44, Issue 4 P663-680
The Economist (2019a) Tertiary Education in Africa A Higher Challenge August 10, P38-39
The Economist (2019b) Idle Hands, August 3, P48-49
World Economic Forum (2020) The Future of Jobs Report 2020 Taken from WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf (weforum.org) 22 October 2022