Why University Graduates Also Struggle to Find Work
The number of university graduates continues to grow. However, graduates do not always easily find jobs that match their education and competencies. Data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) shows that around 1 million university graduates in Indonesia are still looking for work. This situation raises the question of why jobs are not becoming easier to obtain despite having completed higher education.
Bagong Suyanto, Professor at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Airlangga University, sees this issue as related to the relationship between education level, competence, job quality and income. The education sociologist argues that improvements in education should be followed by improvements in competence, job quality and welfare. However, this pattern has not fully occurred in Indonesia.
“University graduates can still find jobs that are not in line with the education or competencies they possess,” Bagong said.
The professor highlighted the mismatch between graduate competencies and the needs of the labour market. Industrial development is moving increasingly fast. Technology is changing the types of jobs and the skills companies require. However, not all university graduates have competencies that match these changes.
As a result, a graduate may hold a higher education diploma but still struggle to find a job that matches their field of study. Even when they do find work, many graduates end up working in fields not directly related to their education.
“A bachelor’s degree can no longer guarantee that someone will obtain a job and improve their standard of living,” Bagong said.
According to him, this problem is not solely related to the abilities of graduates. The direction of economic development also determines how broad the available job opportunities are. Bagong therefore encourages a shift in development orientation towards developing labour-intensive industries. In this way, economic growth could also create more job opportunities.
Another equally important issue is the quality of higher education. According to Bagong, Indonesia does not only need to increase the number of people who obtain bachelor’s degrees. Universities must also ensure that graduates have competencies that are truly needed by the labour market. Increasing the number of graduates will not mean much if they do not have relevant skills.
“It is pointless to have many graduates if the quality of the universities cannot be accounted for,” Bagong stressed.
Universities therefore need to continuously adapt their learning processes to developments in the world of work. Student competencies cannot be built solely through mastery of theory, but must also be able to answer the needs of industry and changes in the labour market.
“Do not just pursue the number of graduates, but ensure they have the quality and competencies truly needed by the labour market,” Bagong said.