In view of the suggestions, Mcquaid, Greig, and Adams (2004) summarized thus that;
i.
demand factors: these include local labour market factors (such as the
level and nature of local and regional or other labour demand, location
issues, centrality/remoteness of local labour markets in relation to
centres of industry/employment, levels of competition for jobs);
ii.
macroeconomic factors: these are macroeconomic stability, level and
nature of labour demand within the national economy and so on);
iii.
vacancy characteristic factors (remuneration, conditions of work,
working hours and prevalence of shift work, opportunities for
progression, extent of part-time, temporary and casual work,
availability of ‘entry-level’ positions if appropriate, and so on); and
iv.
recruitment factors (including employers’ formal recruitment and
selection procedure and general selection preferences, employer
discrimination, form and extent of employers’ use of informal networks,
p. 74).
Adeyemo, Ogunleye, Oke & Adenle’s (2010),
observations have suggested that employment opportunities for graduates
are not mainly a function of the employment system and its requirement
but also of the quantitative structural skill linkages. It has been
noted as well that in many countries, the views and the reputation of
certain institutions and departments influence the employability of
their students. Hence, some institutions of higher learning try to
maintain higher competitive edge for their graduates by including a
different professional experiences during the course of study. The
observation is that employers’ expectations are varied and cannot easily
be determined because of the numerous factors that may influence the
need for recruitment or the recruitment requirement. Sometimes,
employers’ views about the reputation of certain institutions and
departments may tend to influence recruitment, hence, some institutions
of higher education consequently try to ensure higher competitive edge
for their graduates by establishing some direct professional experiences
during the students’ course of study like learning visits, internships
and so on.
According to Schomburg (2007), income and employment
status are equally not satisfying indicators of professional success
while the question of being employed or not is not really relevant if
the employment conditions are not considered. Furthermore, he said that
most graduates work during their course of study in order to contribute
to the course of study or to obtain work experience and the time of
graduation is not the start of employment. Schomburg (2007) further
listed some of the dimensions of graduate professional success to
include the smoothness of the transition process, status and income,
success with regard to the nature of work, for example, use of knowledge
and the extent to which work is characterized by autonomy and
challenging tasks, and overall appreciation of employment and work.
Empirical Studies
Asuquo & Agboola (2014) carried out a study on Nigerian
universities outputs and their employability in the labour markets in
South-South, Nigeria. The descriptive design of ex-post facto type was
used and the study population comprised Nigerian universities graduates
in both private and public establishments in South-South, Nigeria.
Researcher developed questionnaire tagged “Universities Outputs and
their Employability Questionnaire†which was validated by two
independent experts in Test and Measurement was used in data collection.
Reliability of the instrument was tested and Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient of 0.89 was obtained. Multi-stage sampling technique was
used to select a sample of 1200 Universities graduates, 600 from a
private and 600 from public establishments in South-South, Nigeria.
Frequency and percentage were used to analyse the demographics of these
employers while both one sample t-test and independent t-test were used
to test research hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20.0) was used to
enhance data analysis. Result showed that the employability of Nigerian
Universities outputs based on the responses of their employers who rated
them was significantly below average. This result was indifferent in
spite of differences of respondents’ sex, organisation type, educational
qualification and age. Hence, the study recommended that management of
University education in Nigeria should collaborate with the employers of
labour in designing the university curriculum. Also, a more robust and
proactive steps should be taken by Nigerian government to improve the
existing industrial training programme and other programme channeled
towards enhancing the employability of Universities outputs in South-
South and in Nigeria at large.
