A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

97

April 2020

From 8 January to 31 March 2020, more than 78.000 graduates of the higher education system in Catalonia will be surveyed in order to know their employability.

All public, private and affiliated universities in Catalonia and institutions offering programmes leading to Bachelor-level awards in the Performing Arts and Visual Arts will be included in the seventh survey (2020) of the transition into work and employment outcomes of the graduate population carried out by AQU Catalunya, a survey and study undertaken once every three years (2001, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2017) to gather information at programme level for the improvement and enhancement of courses of study being offered by higher education institutions in Catalonia.

The survey covers occupations and employability (employment/unemployment rate, time taken to find a first job, pathways into the labour market, field of work, branches of activity, etc.), occupational quality (degree-related job, duties and responsibilities, recruitment factors, contractual status, annual salary, job satisfaction, etc.) and graduate satisfaction with studies (skills acquired, usefulness in the work place, intention to retake the same degree again, mobility, etc.).

The six surveys carried out so far have produced more than 100,000 entries and as a result Catalonia now has one of the most extensive, complete and representative databases on the transition of its graduate population to the labour market in Europe.

The population of the 2020 survey will be 14% larger than the one in the 2017 survey. New developments have been included in the 2020 questionnaire, and population of 2005 edition of the study will be surveyed again in order to know the gender-based differences in their employability 20 years atfer they finished their studies.

The graduating-year cohorts to be covered by the survey are: Bachelor-level students who completed their studies in 2016 (2013 for graduates in Medicine); graduates of programmes leading to higher awards in the Arts who completed their studies in 2015 and 2016; Master's graduates who completed their studies in 2015 and 2016; and graduates of doctoral degrees who defended a doctoral thesis in 2015 and 2016.

The reference population for the survey totals 78,000, with an estimated sample of more than 35,000.

The results and findings are expected to be presented in July 2020.