Abstract:

The current labor market has modified the labour profile of workers demanded by companies. At present, employees with the capacity to acquire solid, technical, scientific knowledge and open to new knowledge in a constant manner are required, as well as being predisposed to geographical mobility. Numerous studies focus only on the educational analysis as an indicator of the qualifications needed to access a job. However, individuals, even if they have the same level of formal education, have distinctive characteristics that may favor or harm their access to the labor market. One of these characteristics is employability, understood as the "ability to obtain or keep a job" (Campos 2003). Therefore, employability is a condition of preparation to face immediate or future demands in the labour market.

The objective of this paper is to study the perception of employability of a sample of workers and a sample of postgraduate students. It is interesting to know the perceived employability of workers and to contrast it with that of the students who are at the exit door to the job. This contrast could allow the development of plans to improve employability in people who do not yet have a job.

The sample of this study was composed of a total of 120 subjects, residents of the Valencian Community (Spain), and of Spanish nationality. Of these, 55 are men and 65 women, with an average age of 38 years (D.T. = 12.04). 50% are workers already introduced in the labor market and the other 50% are postgraduate students ready to enter in the labour market.

Employability was measured through the employability questionnaire of Llinares, Cordoba and Zacares (2011). This questionnaire measures perceived employability and includes 6 dimensions: protective behaviors of employment, risk of employment, behaviors of job searching, self-control, self-learning and perception of employment. We hypothesize that there will be differences in the perception of employability between active workers and postgraduate students. We expect that workers will have a higher perception of employability than students (Hypothesis 1). We also hypothesized that there will be differences in the perception of employability depending on the gender of the people. In such a way that men will have greater perception of employability than women (Hypothesis 2). To test these hypotheses, Student's t-tests were performed.

Our results have shown that workers have a greater perception of employability than students in the dimensions self-control, self-learning, and perception of control of employment. There are also significant differences in the perception of employability depending on gender in the dimensions of self-control and perception of control of employment.

These results suggest that the ability of the person to manage their behavior (self-control), the ability to adapt to change and continuous improvement (self-learning) and the perception of being able to find work (perception of control of employment), are the factors that facilitate employability. These aspects are found to a greater extent in people who have active work than among postgraduate students. Likewise, self-control and the perception of control of employment are the dimensions that generate greater perception of employability in the sample of men, so it would be convenient to develop these aspects in students and women to favor their perception of employability.

Keywords:

Employability, gender, postgraduate students, workers, globalization, labour market.