Graduating in uncertain times: the impact of Covid-19 on recent graduate career prospects, trajectories and outcomes
Graduating in uncertain times: the impact of Covid-19 on recent graduate career prospects, trajectories and outcomes
This article examines the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on recent UK graduates' initial employment outcomes and how they experience the transition into a challenging labour market context. We draw on longitudinal survey and interview data, collected from recent graduates who had mainly graduated during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in summer 2020 that examines graduate perception of the labour market, impacts on labour market entry impacts and early career progression and effects of periods of unemployment or under-employment. The article shows some of the main impacts of the recent pandemic-affected labour market, including: widespread concerns about job opportunities and employer support, the perceived employment impacts of the pandemic and early signs of scarring and labour market disorientation amongst those who were struggling to find employment of their choice. Such experiences are clearly intensified during the specific COVID-19 context, but the policy implications they raise have wider relevance for supporting graduates during future periods of labour market volatility.
early careers transitions, economic shocks, graduates, policy, scarring
486-500
Tomlinson, Michael
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Reedy, Florence
1041f9d9-5703-4e5b-bc4a-01447c5515b7
Burg, Damon
bb8d103a-6d37-4bfc-b667-b95d479a9f97
10 July 2023
Tomlinson, Michael
9dd1cbf0-d3b0-421e-8ded-b3949ebcee18
Reedy, Florence
1041f9d9-5703-4e5b-bc4a-01447c5515b7
Burg, Damon
bb8d103a-6d37-4bfc-b667-b95d479a9f97
Tomlinson, Michael, Reedy, Florence and Burg, Damon
(2023)
Graduating in uncertain times: the impact of Covid-19 on recent graduate career prospects, trajectories and outcomes.
Higher Education Quarterly, 77 (3), .
(doi:10.1111/hequ.12415).
Abstract
This article examines the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on recent UK graduates' initial employment outcomes and how they experience the transition into a challenging labour market context. We draw on longitudinal survey and interview data, collected from recent graduates who had mainly graduated during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in summer 2020 that examines graduate perception of the labour market, impacts on labour market entry impacts and early career progression and effects of periods of unemployment or under-employment. The article shows some of the main impacts of the recent pandemic-affected labour market, including: widespread concerns about job opportunities and employer support, the perceived employment impacts of the pandemic and early signs of scarring and labour market disorientation amongst those who were struggling to find employment of their choice. Such experiences are clearly intensified during the specific COVID-19 context, but the policy implications they raise have wider relevance for supporting graduates during future periods of labour market volatility.
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Tomlinson - Graduating in uncertain times
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Accepted/In Press date: 9 December 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 December 2022
Published date: 10 July 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the NSF grant DEB 1928860 to Ricardo Holdo and DEB 1928875 to Jesse Nippert. We thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous draft of the manuscript.
Keywords:
early careers transitions, economic shocks, graduates, policy, scarring
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 474048
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/474048
ISSN: 0951-5224
PURE UUID: 168d56f0-a9e9-4832-99e1-4b01a8854a53
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Date deposited: 09 Feb 2023 17:56
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:26
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Author:
Florence Reedy
Author:
Damon Burg
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