Keywords

In the twentieth century, developed countries in particular have increasingly begun using human capital investments to make education, which had transformed into an economic tool, more accessible from the 1960s onwards through increased labor productivity and new information technologies (Alpaydın, 2015). This has led to the emergence of over-education since the 1980s, which is a disease of the school-to-work transition (Teichler, 1999).

From the human capital approach, education creates an economic context in terms of contributing to economic development as a means of increasing the value of labor. The development of human capital paves the way for new opportunities through the value of labor, competitiveness, and innovation (Gillies, 2016; Marimuthu et al., 2009).

However, despite the increased value of labor, the difficulties in integrating production systems into the global economy through technological improvements have led to a disease complicating school-to-work transitions with the longer-term spread of return on investments (ROI). This disease is the so-called phenomenon of over-education (the gap between skill demand and supply) and leads to negative employment outcomes such as working for less-than-expected income rates and lower job positions, informal employment, underemployment, unemployment, and the displacement of qualified graduates (Caroleo & Pastore, 2021). Even though this paints a more positive picture for developed countries, the intellectual communities where the quality and quantity of human capital has increased will achieve long-term investment returns through their markets, human resources, supply chains, and an innovation potential that will change or add to the nature of business. This is because the rate of locally produced technological innovation and the speed of adopting the technologies imported from abroad both depend on the level and stock of human capital (Nelson & Edmund, 1966; Romer, 1989).

Apart from that, the rapid advances in the field of information and technology, the increasing world population, global connectivity, economic crises, climate change, increased mobility, demographic changes, urbanization, and global mega-trends such as the globalization of value chains have now changed the nature of business-skill supply and demand. Because no nation is self-sufficient in a global economy, certain goods (e.g., technologies), are inherently tied to human and information flows (Rodrigue, 2021).

With the transformation of the business world, employers have a greater need for qualified graduates. Although higher education graduates’ qualifications are considered partly problematic by employers, this has still led them to make higher education an important selection criterion for recruitment (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2013; Teichler, 2007).

This diversity in education and business has led to the expansion of quality assurance and accreditation institutions in the development of graduate skills, bringing the quality of education to the agenda (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development [OECD], 2020). It has also given rise to quality assurance leading the policy agendas of many countries (Altbach, 2009). Employment is one of the biggest concerns of stakeholders who demand more accountable and measurable results on the educational outcomes and quality of education. Thus, an increasingly growing interest occurring in external assessment systems such as World University Rankings is not surprising.

Among other advantages provided by higher education, students, especially those aware of the probability of employment, have expanded their demands in recent decades to transcend borders (Tymon, 2013).

The number of global higher education students, which had been about 89 million in 1998, has increased to 200 million today. Following this direction, global participation in secondary and higher education is estimated to reach seven billion people by 2100, a tenfold increase since the 1970s. The number of international students is expected to reach 8 million by 2025, reaching a total of 5.3 million, a three-fold increase compared to the 1990s and two-fold compared to the 2000s (Bennett, 2018; Mok & Han, 2016; University World News, 2021; World Bank, 2017).

After all these developments, despite the increasing number of higher education institutions established worldwide today, 1.21 billion youths (15.5% of the global population; 30% of females and 13% of males) aged 15–24 are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). More than half of the young population (about 776 million) are not in the workforce, meaning they are unemployed, not looking for work, or unable to find work. The ratio of youth unemployment to the global population is 13.6%. Additionally, only 22% of the global youth population is officially employed (ILO, 2020a). In OECD countries, approximately one in two people (53%) aged 18–24 are still in education, while 14% are considered NEET (OECD, 2020).

A comprehensive skill set is needed for the success of the labor market of the twenty-first century for developing a relevant chain of the supply and demand of skills, fulfilling countries’ developmental needs and business world’s survival and growth needs, and achieving the dream of increasing the odds of graduate employment and creating a better future (World Bank, 2021).

Understanding the process of transitioning from higher education to employment in the context of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations General Assembly, 2015) will make significant contributions to education for developing human capital, to the High-Quality Education and Decent Employment agendas (European Union, 2021), and for this matter to be considered from its different dimensions (Knight & Yorke, 2002).

Considered as one of the biggest actors of employment, higher education should maintain business-integrated (experiential) learning models throughout education and working life with employer contributions within the context of institute-industry interactions. In addition, monitoring labor market information (LMI) and developing and matching the needed skills depends on the employment policies that multilateral actors will put into effect at various levels.

To re-summarize, improving the transition from higher education to employment and increasing the employability of graduates is an essential area of interest for individuals, higher education institutions, employers, and governments as parties of the issue in order to obtain individual and social returns from highly expensive higher education investments.

In this chapter, we will examine the current tendencies and policies on developing the transition from higher education to employment. On the surface, the research in this field seems to be mainly focused on how to achieve harmony between the educational system and labor markets, on the economy, and on the intermediary roles of political-regulatory actors by analyzing these systems.

Enhancing Employment Opportunities and Employment Conditions

In a fast-changing labor market, young people are more likely to work part-time or temporary jobs. This can lower further education and training opportunities. However, with policy support, temporary jobs can be molded into a bridge or a stepping stone (European Union, 2014). Negative employment outcomes such as underemployment or informal employment also affect education and labor mobility. Factors of labor migration include the state of the labor market, difficulties in finding a job, unemployment, the wish to improve financial situations or learn more about the world, career prospects, and connection building (Mizintseva et al., 2017). Ensuring fairness and equality in terms of employment is the other side of the coin. To reduce employment victimization in labor and education mobility, making the National Vocational Training Skills Framework (NTVQF) compulsory for the education of migrant workers in meeting the incoming mobility and the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) for prospective migrants or repeat migrants will be beneficial for prospective migrant workers to obtain decent employment, as will making a mutual recognition agreement with target countries, providing women in particular with comprehensive language training specific to the target country, and continuously improving the capacity of education providers (ILO, 2020b; Table 1).

Table 1 Key roles and duties of government and employment actors in the transition from higher education to employment
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Among the main reasons for the high youth unemployment rate are factors such as lack of work experience, lack of field expertise and age discrimination against both youth and adults (Mizintseva et al., 2017). Therefore, a regular analysis of public policy needs to be conducted first on youth employment to identify the main problems that hinder the development of the youth labor market and to promote labor market development. Adopting a balanced and goal-oriented youth policy is of utmost importance for improving the social and economic indicators regarding youth unemployment. Regulatory policies for the youth labor market should be based on a variety of interrelated tools that ensure effective youth employment. Having employers canvass among themselves about the skills of young workers is quite important for fulfilling this task. Tax reductions should be placed on the agenda for employers hiring younger professionals with zero work experience, educational standards should be coordinated with business representatives, practical training components in the curriculum of higher vocational educational institutions should be increased, and individual youth programs for workforce exchanges should be developed. In these processes, the state should participate as an intermediary between universities and educational establishments and should promote the activities of intermediary companies for youth employment and distance education activities (Mizintseva et al., 2017). Additionally, many countries are trying to create more job opportunities for young people through loans, promoting social incubation centers, and cooperatives (O'Higgins, 2017).

Increasing the Capacity of Higher Education Institutions for the Acquisition of Employability Skills

Employers lie at the heart of the debate over graduate employability. Employers must transform employability into employment, and graduates must be trained to acquire skills relevant to employers’ demands (Harvey, 2001). Acquiring such skills depends on the formation and application of higher education activities that will integrate education and work, increase the work experience of the graduates employers think they need (e.g., experiential, project-based, interactive internships and ateliers, learning environments that simulate the workplace), and also provide students lifelong learning and school-to-work transition support through labor market-matching services (mediation) that have high importance in resolving discrepancies in terms of skills between the higher education and business world (Abelha et al., 2020; Asonitou, 2015; ILO, 2005; Minocha et al., 2017; Ryan, 1999; Table 2).

Table 2 Prominent strategies for developing employability skills in higher education
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Guidance and mentoring services available for young people in business environments, classes simulating workplaces, and firm practices are activities that also have relevant and positive ties to promoting graduate skills (Mizintseva et al., 2017) because work experience, which employers consider to have vital importance in the labor market, reduces work-related dissonance problems by almost 50% for graduates (Meng et al., 2020; Ryan, 1999).

As a mixture of experience, education, and personal features, employability skills may vary by institution, sector, and country (Alrifai & Raju, 2019; Reiter, 2021). Thus, personalizing the steps to be taken in terms of employment is important. Providing package courses that individuals or communities can easily apply for at any time in line with their career goals (e.g., MOOC) might be an effective response to sudden changes between recent paradigms and the first steps to be taken to complete the missing skills for fighting the discrepancies caused by the rapid changes in the business world (Kerr et al., 2015). Recognition and verification by an accreditation of the personal skills acquired through such studies are also important (Liyuan et al., 2020). However, such solutions and responses to the problem regarding fields of expertise becoming highly personalized are points that get overlooked in the literature. Additionally, modern learning approaches such as learning analytics (LA) aiming to monitor and improve learning performance and simulate the workplace are also important in terms of surveilling the skillsets in the training processes and providing ideas for both the individual and the community (Avella et al., 2016; ILO, 2013).

Apart from this, the partnership between technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the industry is one of the keys to workplace readiness (ILO & World Bank, 2021). In this regard, addressing measures from secondary education, increasing institute and industry connections in all respects, improving skills, and reducing discrepancies may bring various benefits.

As asserted by studies within the scope of lifelong education, questions of how to make employability skills widespread throughout working life and to develop its sustainability have not been raised in the literature despite its function in compensating for discrepancies (Alpaydın, 2015; Bhaerman & Spill, 1988). However, lifelong education improves the required skills of individuals for them to find a job, remain at the office, and change careers inside the labor market (ILO, 2013).

The capacity higher education institutions have in having students acquire employability skills has become a question of corporate reputation. Higher education rating agencies have also begun to question the qualifications of existing skills in the context of higher education’s employability skills through thousands of surveys taken by employers and graduates. Therefore, higher education institutions have grown to become part of international competition in terms of attracting talent and developing countries. The issue of increased mobility, recognition, and accreditation of acquired skills is seen to have ever-increasing importance from an international perspective (IOE, 2005). The capacity to provide students with employability skills stands out among the characteristics of a competitive higher education institution. Additionally, educational accreditation standards and information play an important role in removing barriers blocking student exchanges and in supporting the global market for advanced skills (ICEF Monitor, 2017).

International research on the increasing importance of institutional reputation among higher education students has revealed institutional reputation to generally be an important selection criterion for health, law, and engineering graduates while not a very important selection criterion for graduates of social sciences, arts, and humanities. Research has revealed differences between programs as well as differences between countries. For instance, while reputation is considered relatively insignificant for health graduates in Spain and France and law graduates in Japan, it is often considered crucial in engineering and business. Generally, graduates of social sciences, arts and humanities, and health were unlikely to consider reputation as an important criterion. Nevertheless, health and law graduates in the UK are the groups that regard reputation most highly (Allen & Van der Velden, 2007).

Monitoring and Developing Prominent Skills in Working Life

The employability skills of human capital are those that provide employment advantages to graduates during education, competence development, and working life (Sverke & Marklund, 2006). Employability as a term is often used interchangeably with the concept of job readiness (Rowe & Zegwaard, 2017). Considering the broad literature on the subject (see Table 2), if we analyze the prominent skills thematically, three important required skill types for students emerge as social-emotional skills, cognitive skills, and technical and professional skills (Table 3).

Table 3 Critical skills expected from graduates in working life
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In a globalized economy, skills also have increasing importance. Although professional and technical skills are crucial, employers seek graduates who have more skills than these. To date, this need has not yet been fully met. McKinsey’s (2012) report based on survey data from nine countries shows that almost half of employers (43%) are able to find the skills they’re looking for in entry-level workers.

Thus, employers look at specific individuals’ employability skills rather than their professional and technical skills. These employability skills prove to be more beneficial for the inexperienced the current employees, and employers in the labor market by improving skills for individuals to find jobs and remain in office, switch careers in the labor market, and participate in lifelong learning. Learning skills allow individuals to manage their own time and make the most of it at work or during education. Teamwork and communication skills guide individuals in terms of making them aware of the positive outcomes of working with others. Problem-solving skills help individuals develop a systematic approach to overcome certain challenges they will face in their work, workplace, and daily life. For employers, these fundamental skills signify if an employee can more easily respond to changes in the workplace and reduce the time spent conceptualizing, producing, distributing, and marketing a service or product. Thus, employees equipped with these skills will be able to learn faster and perform more effectively. Additionally, this will allow businesses to foster more innovative and flexible workplaces, allowing employees to present new ideas and adapt more quickly to technological changes and organizational reconstruction (ILO, 2013).

The main objectives of graduate skills monitoring are to balance the skills demanded by the employer environment and business world with the skills offered by higher education institutions, to prevent the phenomenon of over-education, and also to align skills with labor market conditions in terms of quantity and quality. The main push factors of the shift in skill supply and demand include demography, technology, global economic trends, and migration (Řihová, 2016).

Examples of the process of monitoring, developing, and matching skills include the European Skills Index, the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), and the Singapore Skills Framework accessible through the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Education (Cedefop), web portals, and the Skills Panorama (Cedefop, 2018; EU, 2021).

While disagreement among the skills that the literature considers most important for the labor markets still exists, certain skill types are agreed upon. For instance, Becker (1964) classified the types of skills primarily needed in the business world into two categories: general (common and industry-oriented) and special (job-oriented skills). Soft skills refer to the indirect skills that help employees participate in the business world such as implementing personal learning experiences at work, debating, communication, representation, problem-solving, and teamwork (Andrews & Higson, 2008; Watts, 1977; Whitmore & Fry, 1974). In the context of the ever-changing future of work, assignable or transferable skills depend on the career strength of employees. Transferable skills can be used to position previous work experience into a new job or industry. Core or basic skills represent the general knowledge of basic labor requirements. Key skills on the other hand represent job-specific skills that encompass more specific skillsets and focus on the basic characteristics outlined in a job description (Bennett et al., 1999; Holmes & Hooper, 2000).

Employability skills are essential skills and attributes needed in almost every job. For organizations, these are the general skills that make a person appealing (Bridgstock, 2009). Besides these, survival skills are those that graduates need to acquire at school to help them become high-performing employees and therefore survive in the labor market (Kumar & Jain, 2010). Branine (2008) suggested employers to seek individual-oriented skills rather than job-oriented skills.

As we live in an era where the relations between employees and organizations have changed and where individuals need to gain employability rather than secure employment, employers emphasize employees’ ability to respond to rapid change more so than they did in the past (Baruch, 2001). Instead of wasting a lifetime waiting to find a job, graduates must be qualified to respond to the available opportunities in the job market (Yorke & Harvey, 2005). The form of employment that had emerged in the late twentieth century is no longer convenient in the form of a long-term commitment between employers and employees (Baruch, 2001). This new employment relation resembles an economic exchange not unlike a contract (Tsui & Wu, 2005). Organizing this exchange in a way that transforms the skills of individuals and communities is another dimension of the matter.

An additional important dimension in terms of skills is the issue of monitoring skills during the business process regarding their suitability to job market expectations. Lack of sufficient information about the labor market, poor job placement mechanisms, lack of professional guidance and consultancy services, insufficient demands, and lack of opportunities for work experience all make the problem of finding decent work a lot worse. Therefore, concepts such as sectoral skills analysis, graduate feedback, graduate career monitoring, professional classifications, and working-age population are considered among the central criteria for labor force statistics as solutions to data deficiencies in employment (Abelha et al., 2020; ILO, 2005; ILOSTAT, 2019; Schomburg, 2016; Wilson et al., 2016).

In dynamic and ever-changing labor markets, identifying skill requirements is a big challenge. Given the rapidly evolving labor market, an increasing need exists to fill not only the skill gaps of the present but also labor skill requirements of the future. To resolve these problems, policymakers, employers, workers, educators, trainers, and students all need timely and accurate information about the skill demands of the labor market (Mañé & Corbella, 2017; Table 4).

Table 4 Studies to monitor current and future graduate skills
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Several means of pressure on the business world (e.g., globalization, innovation, increasing information, and technologies, sharing economy) render making a sustainable strategic skills policy difficult. Therefore, the theories question the predictability of the balance of supply and demand.

The analysis of human capital used to predict skill requirements shows that, among the approaches of manpower and social demand, the manpower approach estimates do not have enough means to regulate the education system by itself, and education planning is insufficient for compensating for the failures of manpower forecasting (Alpaydın, 2015; Reiter, 2021; Wilson, 2001). With time, the concepts of manpower forecasting/projection began to be used more commonly instead of manpower planning (Wilson et al., 2016).

In this sense, the forecasting quality of current and future skills will contribute to closing the skills gap between the labor market and higher education institutions depending on the quality of monitoring studies besides the recommended literature. Reclassifying the skill requirements identified in this context of employer environment, sectors, and higher education programs can make the transition from higher education to employment smoother.

However, in this chapter where we discuss labor and job qualifications, deciding which of the two dominates is quite a difficult matter. In other words, in what contexts does higher education or the business environment dominate the other in terms of directing employment? Could current skills provide clues about future skills? One of the effective ways to read this is through understanding the changing roles and capacities of employment actors. Therefore, data-driven decisions obtained from monitoring should be made with the multileveled participation of these actors in the solution processes.

One of the main issues about graduate employability is overcoming the difficulties caused by mismatches between graduates’ qualifications and employers’ demands (Abelha et al., 2020).

For new skills and jobs, in particular, Europe’s strategy for 2020 approves forecasting and matching approaches for helping develop a skilled workforce with the right mix of skills in response to labor market needs for stimulating business. The EU Skills Panorama, launched in 2012, supports efforts to provide better data and intelligence on the skill requirements of the labor market. ILO has reported the member nations that manage to link tripartite representation and skills with achievements in productivity, employment, and development to have formed their skills development policy directed at three main objectives:

  • matching supply with demand,

  • helping workers and businesses adapt to change,

  • and creating competencies for the needs of the future labor market (Andersen et al., 2015).

Skill matching is a complex and dynamic process involving multiple stakeholders. Which types of skills are matched and how to evaluate them for individuals and their families should be identified while making decisions in this process, as well as identifying individuals’ perceptions about their education and training, structured education and training systems, employment policies and investments, education and labor market policymakers, educational institutions, the type and content of training courses, and how employers will train their employees (Andersen et al., 2015).

Insufficient matching between skill supply and demand brings about many negative consequences for individuals and companies, thus affecting the national economy and society as a whole. Insufficient matches, which have negative impacts on wages and job satisfaction, might cause difficulties in recruitment and low productivity at a corporate level. Insufficient matches can adversely affect a nation’s competitiveness, the returns from educational investments, and skills development and can bring about additional costs such as unemployment compensations (Řihová, 2016).

Strategies for effective matching should be based on information about future trends. Firm and reliable forecasting can only be achieved with the active participation of employers, social partners, the educational and training systems, and researchers (Andersen et al., 2015).

Therefore, information on the supply and discrepancy of skills demands should be transformed into appropriate actions in public policymaking. Problems that are identified should be critically analyzed as part of policy formulation options in order to develop and implement optimal measures. Besides education, skills, and employment policies, labor market matching can be supported through national development plans and industrial and migration policies. Websites are the most common information tools for communicating with the general public. Information about current situations and possible future developments that are usually the product of complex methodologies can be demonstrated through graphs and simple charts (Řihová, 2016).

Technical conditions for matching have improved with the wider availability of e-tools, specialized software, and databases that process large volumes of data and produce better matches (Andersen et al., 2015). In this sense, conducting graduate skill-matching jobs together with labor market information (LMI) monitoring activities will contribute greatly to the process.

Work placement during higher education and the work-placement support received while in higher education significantly help reduce graduates’ work-related incompatibilities (McGuinness et al., 2016). In this sense, school and employer participation will provide significant convenience in transition to work and skill matching by connecting schools to work (Minocha et al., 2017).

How students form the connection between education or different employability activities and the achievements that employers will value is important. The DOTS model, first introduced in the 1970s, involved career training (i.e., career development learning), which was generated in response to the rising employment options and unemployment. Schools, Careers, and Community (Watts & Law, 1977) explains career guidance in four elements: decision learning, opportunity awareness, transition learning, and self-awareness (DOTS; Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007; Watts, 1977, 2006).

One framework proposed in low-middle income countries about career consultancy that has an important place in education–work matching touches upon the significance of identifying career information resources and the importance of governance and coordination in supporting employees through training in terms of determining selection criteria for employment, encouraging skills development, and supporting career counseling services. Examining career guidance activities in high-income countries, career information seems to be comprised of five specialties: career information, career education, career counseling, employment counseling, and job placement (Hansen, 2006).

ILO addresses the issue of career guidance at a period when world labor markets and social structures are still changing. Over the past two decades, the need to adapt to the rapid changes of the labor market has become increasingly evident (Hansen, 2006).

Factors such as corporate career guidance curriculum (e.g., entrepreneurship courses) and extracurricular activities (e.g., volunteer activities) to enhance employability, establishing a network between students and employers to enable students to interact with experience as a means of encouragement (e.g., mentoring programs) and to support students’ personal development (e.g., confidence), and learning experience as a whole to promote international mobility and critical thinking are important in the school-to-work transition (Abelha et al., 2020; Ali & Jalal, 2018).

However, one study (Allen & Van der Velden, 2007) about skill matching reveals that, although commercial employment offices do not function well in every country, they are used more in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom than in the other examined countries, whereas in Japan, graduates find work through teaching staff alongside career placement offices located in their respective universities. Considering this, forming a one-fits-all principle of skill matching is not possible. This is because the methods used have different effectiveness from one country to the other. While career offices in schools are effectively used for employment purposes in Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the same method is less preferred in other countries. This underlines the importance of policy commitments for the effectiveness of institutions.

In the matching process, the factors that are effective in selecting a graduate job are important in terms of ensuring job satisfaction (see Fig. 1; Schomburg & Teichler, 2000). High wages, career opportunities, company stability, and employer reliability are the most important factors in a job search (Mizintseva et al., 2017). In one study (Meng et al., 2020), graduates ranked their criteria regarding job selection respectively as high salary (89.2%), career progression probability (68%), job stability and reliability (58.5%), and company’s brand (company popularity in the market; 29.2%). However, graduates’ decisions to enter or continue working in the labor market depend partly on the overall labor market expectations. The country-specific relations between higher education institutions and the business world create a separate context in terms of graduates’ job choices (Alves & Korhonen, 2016).

Fig. 1
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Mediation services in education–work matching

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In markets where graduate expectations are not fully met, labor mobility is much greater. Accordingly, analysis has presented the labor market as the main reason for finding a job abroad. Studies show that study abroad is the lowest for Greece and Croatia in the EU, while the graduates of these countries have the highest degree of mobility (higher education levels) and ultimately the highest student and worker ratios working abroad. In Malta, Croatia, Lithuania, and Greece, more than 40% of graduates face difficulties a year after graduation. In this sense, the countries in the EU where graduates are most at risk are the same. However, the situation has improved in most countries; fewer graduates (around 10%) are unemployed or fewer are employed below their degree qualifications. Having improved its employment conditions of employment, Greece is the exception among these countries with an increasing number of unsuitable jobs for graduates (Meng et al., 2020).

According to some European research survey data obtained from the CHEERS European Graduate Survey (Allen & Van der Velden, 2007) evaluating the importance of employment criteria of the graduates, despite changing from one country to another, the prominent criteria are as follows: work experience during education, the reputation of an educational institution, educational program, pre-education work experience, and abroad experiences. The same research considers applying to job vacancy postings, forming direct contact with employers, and forming connections in or outside work to be the most efficient methods for finding a job. The results of methods such as employer approaches and self-employment have been less fruitful than anticipated.

Additionally, the research shows a correlative relationship to exist between the length of time one looks for a job after graduation and the number of employers contacted. Thus, having labor market programs that reduce the job search time for graduates is necessary (Allen & Van der Velden, 2007). This may be an indicator of employment success. According to data from the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED, 2014) in 27 EU countries, the average time between students’ graduation and first employment is around 5–6 months.

For EU member countries, the employment rates of people aged 20–34 who had just graduated in 2019 were 85.0% for higher education and 62.8% for upper secondary education. Furthermore, employment data from the EU Bureau of Statistics paints a detailed picture of the latest available information for employment rates of newly graduated students. Based on graduates aged 20–34 who’d completed their education or training one to three years before the survey, the research revealed employment rates (80.9% of the overall EU) for the above target audience in 2019 to range from 91.9% in the Netherlands, 92.7% in Germany, and 93.1% in Malta to the lower employment rates in Greece at 59.4% and 58.7% in Italy. Lower rates were recorded in Turkey (57.8%) and Northern Macedonia (57.2%; European Union, 2019).

The diversity of concepts we have covered so far reminds us how complex the transition from higher education to employment is. The parties cannot be expected to develop an effective policy without a thorough understanding of the education and employment ecosystem summarized in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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Structure, process, and functioning of the school-to-work transition

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According to our model, developing employability skills and monitoring these skills obtained from higher education are important in terms of the actions to be taken at the level of higher education. Regarding employment, ensuring employment security and thus preventing informal employment by institutional and political arrangements, improving the conditions for finding a job, and giving due attention to the expectations of both graduates and employers will improve the quality of the matching processes. However, the innovational dimension of the issue, which often goes overlooked in the literature, has the potential to revolutionize the required skill supply and demand in the business and educational world. For instance, both policies and private enterprise supports will receive benefits in terms of future management to be prepared for innovations that radically change the supply chains, human resources, and markets of the business world.

Conclusion

Human capital development and a qualified education will maintain the first coming policy for improving the transition from education to work. Intellectual accumulation is one of the most important means of pursuing innovations and keeping up with the pace of the rapidly changing world. The number and qualities of the human capital of economies, which are under several different pressures each day due to the changing global phenomena, are the reference point for development and growth. Therefore, efforts to promote higher education should be supported in terms of the long-term returns on investments, although this leads to the phenomenon of over-education.

Making businesses and higher education institutions work in harmony depends on how well education is made into an effective tool in an economic context. In terms of the transition to employment, which is a topic of debate in this regard, the following topics emerge as important dimensions that indicate this harmony: improving access to employment opportunities and employment conditions, improving the employability skills of higher education institutions, monitoring and developing prominent skills in business life, and aligning them with labor market expectations.

To increase employability, the discrepancies of graduate skills with the labor market should be reduced. After monitoring the skills in labor markets and analyzing the data, the most important aspect of the issue is developing and matching the required skills.

Graduate skills in educational and business environments that follow the monitoring activities with the participation of employers in a work-integrated way (e.g., experiential, project-based, interactive, internships and workshops, learning environments that simulate the workplace) should be extended lifelong to all areas of life. Additionally, apart from the technical and professional skills required by employers, developing socio-emotional and cognitive skills with equal attention is also crucial. Regarding this, strengthening the relationship between institute and industry, smoothing the school-to-work transition and vice versa, and recognizing acquired and developed skills are important.

Preventing unregistered employment by ensuring employment security and making education–workforce mobility work in favor of graduates; ensuring justice and equality in access to employment; implementing encouraging and regulatory efforts between youth programs and policies, labor markets, and higher education; developing innovation infrastructure and participation of employment actors; investigating the effects of changing roles and capacities in decision-making policies; balancing supply and demand; evaluating the criteria that are decisive in the selection of graduates and employers in terms of employment; and reducing the time of job search, mediation services, and opportunities to be provided in skill matching processes, job searching methods, and opportunities also have prominent effects on employability.

Thus, in the process of transition from higher education to employment, placing all the burden on higher education institutions will not solve the problem. Therefore, biased criticism of higher education institutions is a problematic and unfair approach. In such a comprehensive and multi-layered issue, especially in the monitoring of graduate skills development and mapping processes, considering the changing roles and capacities of employment actors, their participation at various levels should be encouraged by institutional and political support.

The literature falls short in addressing the dimension of innovation in the transition from higher education to employment; this has led to mismatches between education and business. However, the transformative effects innovation has on both education and business should not go unnoticed as policies should consider stability and sudden changes, especially for the continuity of business, market, human resources, and supply chains that change radically with innovations. In this regard, innovation metrics should also be added to the data set when monitoring labor market data. Additionally, providing the young people with enterprise support by taking into account the innovation paradigms may also make new job opportunities emerge in the future.