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Education enhances the human capital in the form of educated, trained and skilled youth. Along with sophisticated technologies, better human capital improves economic and social conditions to meet the rapid changes in the global economic environment. Educated employed youth capacitates the economic resources to be used effectively and efficiently, that cause to enhance productivity. But, if degree holders couldn't get proper jobs than its point to think about abilities, attitudes and capabilities developed by degree awarding institutions among their passing out graduates. This study is to gage the mismatch between employers' expectations and graduating students' perceptions vi's-à-vi's employability skills. To find the objectives of the study 175 graduating students of the final semester (of computer sciences, economics and Business management departments) and 30 employers of respective industries are selected by applying the stratified sampling technique. Non-parametric techniques are applied to analyze the data. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms that all the variables of the following factors; Knowledge, skills, thinking skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and management skills provided by educational institutions and are demanded by employers. An index is developed to measure the gap between skills; acquired and in demand and presented through a radar diagram. The Mann-Whitney U Test shows significant differences between employers' expectations and students' perceptions about employability skills. More importantly the skills; punctuality, time management, discipline, oral communication and positive attitude are the skills ranked high by the employers while knowledge skills and practical skills are ranked high by the graduating students. This depicts that employers rank soft skills high while students consider knowledge based skills only for employment. So this paper suggests that educational institutions should prepare their students with soft skills to meet the demand of employers in labor market.
Keywords: Employability skills, Factor Analysis
JEL Classification: D84, E24, I21, I23
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Introduction
Employability denotes the capabilities of a person to gain and maintain the employment. Employment occurs when the attitude and skills of an individual match with the needs, attitude, and expectations of the employer. Unemployment can happen because of fewer jobs in market, weak policies from government or the graduates are not fulfilling the skills demand of job market, etc. Broadly unemployment of youth based on demand side views; slow economic growth, less...