FACTBase Bulletin 80 - Skills Usage and Transferability Opportunities for Graduates

The Committee for Perth releases our 80th FACTBase Bulletin, the final of three research reports in our Race to the Top major project.

This Bulletin explores transferable and specialist skills across occupations and review graduates’ entry into the labour market.

The Committee's Race to the Top project aims to address immediate labour and skill shortages and prepare the workforce to meet future industry demand.

Key Findings

• The Western Australian economy has undergone major structural changes over recent decades, and, more recently, COVID-19 has accentuated skill and labour shortages.
• The pandemic has shown that access to workers and worker mobility are important to meeting labour demand. A key component of labour mobility is skills transferability.
• Transferable skills can be thought of in terms of core competencies or general / soft skills (e.g., communication, interpersonal skills, problem-solving) and specific technical / hard skills. The former is generally more transferable whereas skills that are specific to an occupation and where the individual spends a reasonable amount of time performing the task would be less transferable.
• Most occupations require workers to have an intermediate level of core competencies (e.g., problem-solving, reading, writing, planning and organising).
• While there are distinct career pathways for university and vocational education and training (VET) graduates, given the overlap between some VET and university qualifications, care should be taken when interpreting the results because the labour market outcomes of graduates can reflect the skills they obtained from both sectors. Data show that university graduates are more likely to be employed in professional occupations, while VET graduates have more diverse occupational outcomes, being employed as technicians and trades workers, professionals, and community and service workers.
• New university graduates experience an initial period of adjustment before finding full-time employment. Three to four years after graduating, undergraduates who studied creative arts, and humanities, culture and social sciences typically have the lowest full-time employment rate.
• VET graduates who completed a qualification in information technology and creative arts have the lowest employment rate after completing their training.
• There is under-utilisation of skills and job mismatch. This appears to be more prevalent for graduates with generalist degrees, or those who do not have well-defined pathways from education to work.
• Most employers are very satisfied with university graduates’ foundation, adaptive, collaborative and technical skills. However, employers reported a qualification could have better prepared graduates for employment in technical and professional skills, domain-specific skills and knowledge, and employability and enterprise skills.Most employers are very satisfied with university graduates’ foundation, adaptive, collaborative and technical skills. However, employers reported a qualification could have better prepared graduates for employment in technical and professional skills, domain-specific skills and knowledge, and employability and enterprise skills.
• Regarding VET, while most employers are satisfied with training as a means to address their skill needs, they are also critical of a lack of focus on practical skills, lack of relevant skills taught, and poor quality or low standard training.