WORKERS AND POSTGRADUATE STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF EMPLOYABILITY

The current labor market has modified the labor profile of workers demanded by companies. At present, employees with the capacity to acquire solid, technical, scientific knowledge and open to new knowledge in a constant manner are required, as well as being predisposed to geographical mobility. Numerous studies have focused only on the educational analysis as an indicator of the qualifications needed to access a job. However, individuals, even if they have the same level of formal education, have distinctive characteristics that may favor or harm their access to the labor market. One of these characteristics is employability, understood as the "ability to obtain or keep a job" [1]. Therefore, employability is a condition of preparation to face immediate or future demands in the labour market. The objective of this paper is to study the perception of employability of a sample of workers and a sample of postgraduate students. It is interesting to know the perceived employability of workers and to contrast it with that of the students who are at the exit door to the job. This contrast could allow the development of plans to improve employability in people who do not yet have a job. The sample of this study was composed of a total of 132 subjects, residents of the Valencian Community (Spain), and of Spanish nationality. Of these, 45.83% are men and 54.17% women, with an average age of 38 years (SD. = 12.04). 50% are workers already introduced in the labor market and the other 50% are postgraduate students ready to enter in the labor market. Employability was measured through the Employability Appraisal Scale (EAS) of Llinares-Insa, González-Navarro, Cordoba-Iñesta, and Zacarés-González [2]. This questionnaire measures perceived employability and includes 5 dimensions: employment protective behavior, employment risk, job-seeking behavior, self-control and self-learning. We hypothesize that there will be differences in the perception of employability between active workers and postgraduate students. We expect that workers will have a higher perception of employability than students (Hypothesis 1). We also hypothesized that there will be differences in the perception of employability depending on the gender of the people. In such a way that men will have greater perception of employability than women (Hypothesis 2). To test these hypotheses, Student's t-tests were performed. Our results have shown that workers have a greater perception of employability than students in the dimension self-control and self-learning. There are also significant differences in the perception of employability depending on gender in self-control dimension. These results suggest that the ability of the person to manage their behavior (self-control) and the ability to adapt to change and continuous improvement (self-learning), are the factors that facilitate employability. These aspects are found to a greater extent in people who have active work than among postgraduate students. Likewise, self-control and the perception of control of employment are the dimensions that generate greater perception of employability in the sample of men, so it would be convenient to develop these aspects in students and women to favor their perception of employability.