In order to prepare students for their future professional life, research has shifted from a skills-based approach to one that centres on their socio-cultural resources. In particular, how they evaluate their 'social and cultural capital', in relation to their developing professional identities, and how this can be facilitated through…

Early work experience is found to be an influential factor in young people's transitions from school to work. Still, we know little about whether early work experience can protect vulnerable young people from subsequent exclusion from labour and education in early adulthood. Our objective is therefore to examine how early work experience in…

Historically, males from low socio-economic backgrounds have been a difficult demographic for educators to reach and engage. Despite efforts to widen participation in Australia, males who would be considered 'first-in-family', remain severely underrepresented in higher education. For those who do attend, they often encounter significant barriers…

Research aiming to explain disabled people's inequalities in the labour market has primarily focused on transitional factors between school and work, wage gaps, or socioeconomic background characteristics as explanations for (no-)entry in the labour market. There is a lack of longitudinal studies that map how disabled people fare in the labour…

The student workforce plays a substantial part in several low-paying industries such as retail and hospitality, and this has grown over time. However, there has been little recent research. The usual assumption is that students compete successfully with the local labour force for low-skill, part-time jobs, but there is little evidence for this.…

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 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…

Incorporation into the labour market is a key endeavour, of heightened importance in recent years due to high migration flows, for both immigrants and their recipient countries. Hence, activation and employability are major themes in both transnational and national policy discussions, which have generated various programmes and policy measures.…

International graduate employability is critical to host universities' positioning in the education export market, internationalisation agenda and ethical responsibility to international students and alumni. However, little is known about the positioning and re-positioning of international graduates in their home labour market. This article…

In many parts of the world, recognition of prior learning (RPL) is considered to be an important means of improving access to VET qualifications. In Switzerland -- the country with arguably the highest rates of company-based VET at upper secondary level -- adults with work experience of at least 5 years have had the option of accessing VET…

We present new evidence on the pandemic's effects on youth, for the first time focusing on perceived effects on the learning of job skills, as well as on education. The context is post-Brexit Britain. We find that 47% of young people in a representative sample perceive a loss of learning of job skills, while a sizeable minority (17%) judge that…

Some countries have certifying institutions for competence acquired at the workplace. These institutions provide incentives for workplace training that may have favourable effects on productivity, earnings and labour market participation. We present evidence on the earnings effects of attaining vocational qualifications in adulthood through two…

The Bologna process has contributed to redefining the concept of employability in higher education policies. In parallel, the professionalisation movement of French higher education has become more pronounced, notably through the development of work placements within the university curricula. In this article, we propose to re-examine the…

Vocational education and training has received substantial policy attention in recent years that is paired with the ambition for the UK to become a leading country for jobs, productivity and skills. Recommendations from two recent reviews form the basis for substantial policy reforms within the 14-19 curriculum. Discourse of employer engagement…

By virtue of the internationalisation of economies, international student mobility is considered increasingly important for professional careers. However, most studies focus on the supply-side by using graduate surveys, which face problems of graduates' self-selection. Other studies on employers' opinions often lack rigour analysis and report…