Skills Gap of Business Graduates in the Banking Sector of Bangladesh: Employers’ Expectation Versus Reality

Abstract

Bangladesh is a fast growing economy and has managed to maintain an impressive annual average growth rate of above 6 percent over the last 10 years. Although there are almost 2 million young people who enter the job market every year, they often fail to meet the demands of the existing job market due to lack of adequate skills. Most of the graduates struggle to find a decent job as their skills fail to match the employers’ expectations and needs. As the skill gap is brewing up creating a rise in unemployment, there is an urgent need for actions to enhance employability prospects of fresh graduates. In this study we aim to investigate the skill competence and skill gap of business graduates in the banking sector of Bangladesh. We utilized the mean scores of employability skills in terms of their significance as perceived by the employers in banks and the actual competency of business graduates. Findings of this study will allow students, employers, educators and policy makers in Bangladesh to recognize the critical areas where business graduates are lagging behind in the banking sector thus enabling them to take effective measures in order to reduce the skills gap.