Higher education graduates' employment and the uncertainty of working life.

Abstract

The aim of the chapter is to examine how the uncertainty and instability of working life is reflected in Finnish polytechnic graduates’ employment. The study investigates the fields of business and engineering by comparing two graduate cohorts. The societal context, in which new graduates enter working life, is the increasing precariousness of the labour market that applies to higher education graduates as well as to general population. A higher education qualification is not necessarily a guaranteed way to high social status and high income as it used to be. Insecurity and uncertainty in society and working life can be considered as general features of late modern (post-modern) society. The data is collected by questionnaires among polytechnic graduates (business and administration: in 2003: n=625, in 2005: n=508; technology & transport: in 2003: n=638, in 2005: n=542). The findings show that polytechnic graduates have been successful in obtaining employment. Their transition to the world of work was quite fluent. The great majority of them were in paid work and had regular employment. However, from the first graduate cohort to the later one there is perceptible weakening in graduates’ employment success: for example the proportion of those who did not have adequate employment increased.