A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
Employment growth, more job stability and loss of purchasing power: this is the face of the labour market after the health crisis. Graduates also report shortcomings in communication skills.
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The Survey on the Employment Outcomes of Catalan University Graduates, which AQU Catalunya has been coordinating for more than 20 years, is the result of the interest of Catalan universities and higher education institutions in having employment indicators for the reflection and improvement of the quality of degree programmes. Specifically, the study analyses the employment status of people who graduated three or four years ago. The response obtained in this 2023 edition is as follows:
Resum del treball de camp 2023
| Població contactable | Mostra obtinguda | Taxa de resposta | Error mostral | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graus* | 43.908 | 22.949 | 52,3% | 0,4% |
| Màsters | 40.753 | 15.423 | 37,8% | 0,6% |
| Doctorats | 4.662 | 2.490 | 53,4% | 1,3% |
| TOTAL | 89.323 | 40.862 | 45,7% | 0,4% |
From the eighth edition of this study, we can extract https://www.aqu.cat/Estudis/Enquestes-i-estudis-tematics/Insercio-laboralinteresting results in many areas and for many different actors, but we want to focus on three that we believe allow us to summarise this latest edition fairly well.
The 2023 data show the lowest unemployment rate since 2011 (the year as of which complete data is available), and that master’s and PhDs are even below the 5% threshold.
As shown in the reports, this increase in employment is not paralleled by a higher weight of non-university employment (or over-qualification) in recent years, but rather the opposite. Contextual data, such as those provided by the Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS), suggest that people with higher education have almost reached the levels prior to the 2008 economic crisis, contrary to other educational levels.
Boosted by the 2022 labour reform (Royal Decree Law 32/2021), job stability is at its highest level in the survey’s historical series. In 2023, almost 7 out of 10 people are in employment with a permanent contract.
However, while job stability has clearly increased, the purchasing power of graduates in Catalonia has decreased over the last three years as a result of high levels of inflation.
Finally, graduates point to communication skills as those in which they detect the greatest shortcomings with respect to what the world of work requires of them. English remains the main skill to be improved, followed by written expression and, in the case of master’s degrees, also oral expression.