Abstract
This study was carried out to predict the time spell to first employment and to determine the effects of related factors on the timing of first employment on new graduates from Debre Markos University using survival models. The study used the 2018 Debre Markos University graduate tracer survey data. Cox PH and parametric accelerated failure time models were used. The Akaike information criterion (AIC) was used to select the best parametric model that could explain the waiting time to first employment. The median waiting time to first employment of graduates was found to be 15 months, showing that 50% of graduates managed to find their first job 15 months after their graduation date. In a comparison among parametric survival models, the log-logistic parametric model was better in describing the timing of graduates to first employment. Covariates such as gender, cumulative grade point average (CGPA) earned from the university, age at graduation, residence, field of study preference of graduates, and college/faculty were found to be statistically significant ( p value <0.05) predictors of the waiting time to first employment. The log-logistic parametric model fitted the waiting time to the first employment data well and could be taken as an alternative for the Cox PH model.
Highlights
Securing a job immediately after graduation is a challenge for first-degree graduates in Ethiopia [1]
Among the parametric Accelerated failure time (AFT) models, the log-logistic parametric model fitted the data well. e median time to first employment of the graduate was 15 months, which is a longer time compared to the study conducted in Sri Lanka where nearly 50% of the graduates got their first job by 12 months after their graduation [34]
E study revealed that males had shorter unemployment spells than that of females. is finding is similar to the previous studies conducted in Tanzania [35], but it contradicted a study conducted in Ethiopian by Kong and Jiang and in China [36, 37], which showed that female graduates are more likely to enter the labor market ahead of males. is is possibly attributed to the difference in study time and place. e result revealed that graduates who were in a higher cumulative grade point average (CGPA) category had shorter unemployment spells
Summary
Securing a job immediately after graduation is a challenge for first-degree graduates in Ethiopia [1]. E number of students graduating from universities has been increasing year by year due to the massification of students joining higher education and the rapid expansion of programs in higher education [4]. Despite this expansion, graduate unemployment poses a challenge to the country [5]. Graduate unemployment or delayed employment is attributed to the lack of soft or nontechnical skills of graduates, poor entrepreneur skills [7,8,9,10], and shortage of finance to create their own jobs [6] Factors such as the reputation of higher education institutions, the capacity of higher education to provide consultancy service, mismatch of skills between graduates, and employers’ demands affect graduate employment [11]. Individual factors, including discipline type, graduate’s achievement, gender, residence, family background, and graduates’ job hunting skills influence graduates employment [12,13,14,15,16]
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