Employment of Graduates of Kazakhstan Universities: Analysis of Problems

Employment of STEM graduates in Kazakhstan: current situation

“…However, it should be noted that the case of the labor market in Kazakhstan shows a more noticeable shift towards the non-STEM segment in the context of the final interests of graduates. Despite the fact that the methodology of the current study, based on official statistics, does not fully allow to trace the trajectories of STEM graduates, due to existing limitations, the results of the study by Francesco et al (2020) can shed some light on the underlying premises of the observed phenomenon [7].…”

“…In recent decades, universities have become increasingly crucial as drivers of external and internal markets, adapting to labor market demands and dynamic changes while also considering the requirements of employers in both public and private sectors. Furthermore, the employment rate of graduates is a crucial indicator used to evaluate university performance [7]. Therefore, it is essential to analyze graduate employment in connection with the higher education structure.…”

“…Graduates of universities in Kazakhstan in their last years of study generally have a rather weak assessment of the prospects for working in accordance with their specialty: obtaining a diploma comes to the fore, as well as further improving professional skills both in the context of vocational and postgraduate types of education [7]. KZ STEM labor market data show that the real recruitment of graduates to work in the STEM segment by organizations covers significantly fewer graduates with the relevant education.…”

“…Along with the studies of career trajectories, gender characteristics and personal features, researchers devoted their papers to such an important issue such as shortage or inconsistency of graduates' skills with the requirements and needs of the labor market and particularly employers [4,7].…”

“…These facts additionally emphasize the necessity and relevance of the stated research issues. At the same time, the vast majority of studies use qualitative methods of analysis [7,20,21], while there are very few works based on quantitative methods of analysis using official statistical data or special data sets [2,12,13]. At the same time, in most studies, the lack and limited capacity of the data connected with the initial issue were underlined as the primal limitation of research.…”