Abstract:

The high school and university graduates face difficulties in finding a suitable job after completing their education, despite the current economic world 4.0 is manifesting itself for the shift in the balance of power between employers and employees. This disbalance, evidenced by one of the priorities of the Europe 2020 Strategy, is determined by the discrepancy between offered job positions and what the competencies and knowledge of the graduates.

The presented research has been focused on the identification of specific fields in which it is the simplest, and on the contrary, the most difficult to find employment for a recent graduate of secondary and tertiary education in the Czech Republic. A partial research goal has been to identified the fields with the minimum and maximum unemployment rate of graduates of secondary and tertiary education and to compare the results for individual types of schools.

The graduate's employment data was drawn from data sets on the web portals of the Czech Statistical Office and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. For the purposes of the analysis, the surveyed secondary and higher education institutions were divided according to the wording of the Education Act (No. 561/2001 Coll.), as well as according to the type of study and the founder of the educational institution. The long-term development of the time series was defined by a trend, and the Chow test was used to identify a structural break. A generalized regression model was used to estimate the unemployment rate. Estimates were obtained using Genstat software 19. Cluster analysis was used to identify similarities in applicability in individual schools.

Based on the results of the cluster analysis and the linear regression model, it has been found that the best applicability is in the long run for graduates of private universities with a pedagogical focus. On the contrary, the most problematic areas with regard to the graduate's employment have been marked the fields of agriculture and forestry. For the high school graduates, the best employment has been found in the field of pedagogy, medicine and pharmacy. Services and crafts are among the specializations that are problematic for the employment of high school graduates in terms of higher unemployment.

These results have been discussed in the consequences of recent Covid 19 pandemic and its implications to the labour market. Based on the findings, it is advisable to focus attention on the outputs and competencies that students should acquire in the given fields. This information can be used for adjustments to the Framework Educational Programs of individual fields. Also, Universities and secondary schools, in cooperation with companies and other stakeholders (ministry, trade unions), should create a research network for joint monitoring of market needs and its alignment with the offer of fields of study.

Keywords:

Study field decision+ graduate's employment, competencies for labour market.