UNIVERSITY GRADUATES’ EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS’ MISMATCH ND THE LABOUR MARKET DEMANDS IN KENYA

Abstract

This study aimed at establishing whether there were skills mismatch between university graduates and Job Market expectations. The study objective was to establish whether there were skills gap between employers’ expectations and what the university graduates possess. The study targeted 10000 university graduates from chartered Kenya’s public and private universities, and 2,500 employers registered with Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE). Systematic research design and stratified research designs were used to sample 1000 graduates and 250 employers (HRM) respectively. Questionnaires, were data collection instruments. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients was used to assess the internal consistency of the measuring instruments. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 was used to analyse data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. The descriptive statistics revealed that there were employability skills gap between employer’s expectations and what the university graduates had. The study found out that employability skills of graduates in Kenya are now considered to be the most important skills which the employers pay keen attention to.