Predicting Perceived Employability: Human Capital or Labour Market Opportunities?

Abstract

Employability is believed to be a crucial concept concerning employees' job security. This study investigates whether factors associated with human capital and the dual labour market predict perceived employability. Two national representative Swedish samples are used, representing economic recession (1993, N ¼ 4952) and prosperity (1999, N ¼ 6696). Employability was perceived as higher during prosperity, but human capital factors as well as dual labour market factors predicted perceived employability, irrespective of the time period. These findings indicate that the understanding of employability is enhanced by considering both structural and individual dimensions.

Searching for a Job on the Contemporary Labour Market: The Role of Dispositional Employability

“…Since COR theory posits that individuals with greater resources are more capable of gaining additional resources (Hobfoll, 2011), higher level of dispositional employability might foster one's perceived employability. In addition, previous research have outlined that perceived employability results from both personal (e.g., knowledge, abilities, attitudes) and situational (e.g., situation on a labour market) factors (Berntson, Sverke, & Marklund, 2006;Kirves, Kinnunen, & De Cuyper, 2014). Accounting for these arguments, it follows that the perception of one's chances of finding a new job (i.e., perceived employability) should depend on one's personal characteristics, such as dispositional employability.…”

“…Following the logic of the most recent employability models (e.g., Forrier, Sels, & Stynen, 2009;Forrier, Verbruggen, & De Cuyper, 2015), we posit that perceived employability has particular resonance in this regard because it concerns the individual's perception of how easy it is to obtain new employment (Berntson, Sverke, & Marklund, 2006). Arguably, the postulated mediating role of perceived employability aligns with the subjectivity inherent in this approach.…”

Going beyond workplace stressors: Economic crisis and perceived employability in relation to psychological distress and job dissatisfaction.

“…Sex, seniority and job status were used to control for the relationship between perceived employability, fear of the economic crisis and psychological distress, since these demographic variables might be related to stress related constructs (e.g., Berntson et al, 2006, Giorgi, Ando, Arenas, Shoss, & Leon-Perez, 2013b. We also controlled for other known predictors of psychological distress, specifically job demands, lack of job control and workplace bullying.…”

Determinants of Higher Education Students' Self-Perceived Employability

“…Usporedimo li ove vrijednosti s onima iz dosadašnjih istraživanja, možemo zaključiti da je prosječna visina percipirane zapošljivosti našega poduzorka lakše zapošljivih studenata slična onoj koju su autori skale (Rothwell i sur., 2009) svojedobno dobili na uzorku britanskih i stranih studenata poslovnoga studija s fakulteta u Velikoj Britaniji (M = 57,4). Ovakav nalaz prilično je intrigantan uzmemo li u obzir da percepcija zapošljivosti uvelike ovisi o općem ekonomskom stanju na državnoj razini (Berntson, Sverke i Marklund, 2006). U domeni individualnog aspekta, osobina temeljne samoevaluacije -u skladu s očekivanjima -pokazala je pozitivnu povezanost s percipiranom zapošljivosti te je dobivena korelacija ujedno veličinom najveća od svih osobina uključe-nih u ovo istraživanje.…”