Tertiary education and labour market insertion. Empirical evidence from Romania

prof. Andrei Maxim & prof. Laura Diaconu (Maxim), Romania, ID LLCE2017-154;      Abstract: For higher education institutions, correlating the content of their programmes with the demands of the employers is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s changing market realities. The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree to which recent graduates of several university programmes got employed in a field consistent with their education. Their situation was analysed through a survey. The sample included 319 former students of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, ‘Al. I. Cuza’ University of Iasi. The results show that 57% of those who applied for a job immediately after finishing their studies succeeded in finding one. On average, the process took from 2,07 months, for Public Administration (PA) graduates, to 4,41 months for those who finished Economy and International Business. Yet, PA graduates indicated the lowest degree of relationship between their field of study and their job. The highest scores were reported in the case of Economic Informatics (EI), Marketing (MK) and Accounting. Moreover, EI and MK graduates consider to the greatest extent that the knowledge and skills accumulated during their studies are useful in their professional activity.

Key words:  Romanian Economics and Business graduates, field of study, labour market insertion