Abstract
This paper investigates to what extent self-rated job-specific and generic skills and different types of educational signals are positively related to the labor market integration process of Dutch graduates, 18 months after finishing upper secondary vocational education. Our contributions to the current literature are that of simultaneously investigating these different types of skills and (a more extensive concept of) educational signals, and moreover examining to what extent the impact of self-rated specific skills and educational signals differ between the four labor market outcomes under investigation. We analyzed secondary survey data from the VET survey collected in the Netherlands in 2015. Results indicate that (1) self-rated specific skills—acquired either in education or on the job—are more positively related to favorable labor market outcomes than self-rated generic skills in the first 18 months of graduates’ integration process, (2) only certain educational signals positively impact labor market integration, and (3) the positive impact of self-rated specific skills and signals varies between different labor market outcomes.
Highlights
The transition from school to work is regarded as a precarious period for young people, as they often have to deal with periods of job searching, occupational mismatches and flexible contracts (Levels et al 2014; Scherer 2005; Wolbers 2003)
The second question this paper addresses is: To what extent does the role of self-rated specific skills and the role of signals vary between different labor market outcomes among graduated school-leavers from vocational education in the Netherlands?
These findings indicate that graduates’ higher level of self-rated specific skills and the educational signals under investigation are independently of one another positively related to youth labor market integration
Summary
The transition from school to work is regarded as a precarious period for young people, as they often have to deal with periods of job searching, occupational mismatches and flexible contracts (Levels et al 2014; Scherer 2005; Wolbers 2003). Education plays a decisive role in preparing youth for the labor market, and the provision of skills and qualifications is one of the key tasks of the education system (Van de Werfhorst 2014). This ‘labor market task’ is most strongly featured in vocational education, by providing students with skills that make them productive for work, which optimizes their labor market perspectives (Van de Werfhorst and Mijs 2010). Vocational education provides students with different types of skills and signals, both of which are important resources for young people to enter the labor market (Hannan et al 1997)
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