Am I Fit for Tomorrow’s Labor Market? The Effect of Graduates’ Skills Development during Higher Education for the 21st Century’s Labor Market

Omar Habets, Jol Stoffers, Beatrice Van der Heijden and Pascale Peters
Additional contact information
Omar Habets: Research Centre for Employability, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, 6131 MT Sittard, The Netherlands
Jol Stoffers: Research Centre for Employability, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, 6131 MT Sittard, The Netherlands
Beatrice Van der Heijden: Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Pascale Peters: Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-13

Abstract: This study contributes to the employability skills debate by investigating how students’ self-perceived 21st century skills relate to the self-perceived fit between their higher education curriculum and their future labor market for a sustainable entry to this labor market. Survey data from 4670 fourth-year students over a period of four years were analyzed. Furthermore, out of this group, 83 students were monitored longitudinally over their full educational student careers. Results showed a positive relationship between students’ self-perceived 21st century skills and their self-perceived “education-future labor market fit”. Among more recent cohorts, a significant improvement in their self-perceived 21st century skills was found. Overall, this study indicated that in order to deliver “employable” graduates, students need to be thoroughly trained in 21st century skills, and their development should be retained and expanded. This is one of the few studies that uses a vast amount of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data on skills and labor market perspectives among new graduates.

Keywords: education-future labor market fit; self-rated 21st century skills; labor market analysis; employability; role of higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7746/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7746/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:18:p:7746-:d:415920

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().