Graduate employability in Europe: the role of human capital, institutional reputation and network ties in European graduate labour markets

Figures & data

Table 1. Sample characteristics

	Private companies
Company Size
50–249	85%
250+	15%
Don’t know/ no answer	0%
Graduate recruitment last 5 years
Have recruited and plan to recruit more	67%
Have recruited but not planning to recruit more	26%
Did not recruit but planning to recruit	6%
Economic sector
1 Manufacturing	33.5%
2 Mining and quarrying, electricity, water supply	4.7%
3 Construction	9.0%
4 Transportation and storage	4.3%
5 Information and communication	3.1%
6 Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles	12.9%
7 Accommodation and food service activities	4.5%
8 Public administration and human health	2.9%
9 Financial and insurance activities	3.3%
10 Professional, scientific and technical activities	3.4%
11 Other services	18.5%

Source: Flash Barometer 304. Economic sector classification is reported as coded by the Eurobarometer survey.

Table 2. Proportion of responses with respect to indicators of HC, RC, NC

Human capital					Reputational capital		Networking capital
		Generic	Technical	Non-cognitive
High score		39.0	41.7	23.0	Very important	13.0	Very frequently	6.3
Rather high score		25.5	32.8	27.4	Rather important	27.6	Rather frequently	11.8
Rather low score		19.5	18.3	25.2	Rather unimportant	37.0	Sometimes	37.5
Low score		16.0	7.2	24.5	Not important at all	22.4	Never	44.4
	Source: Flash Eurobarometer 304.

Note: High score: 11–12 points for generic skills, 8 points for technical skills, and 24 points for non-cognitive skills; Rather high score: 10 points, 7 points, and 22–23 points for generic, technical and non-cognitive skills respectively; Rather low score: generic skills 9 points, technical 6–7 points, and non-cognitive 20–21 points. Low score implied 8 points or less in generic dimension, 5 points or less in technical dimension, and up to 19 points in non-cognitive dimension.

Table 3. BIC for heterogeneous, partially homogeneous and completely homogeneous models

BIC	heterogeneous	partially homogeneous	completely homogeneous
1 class	99,997.30	99,470.03	99,470.03
2 classes	102,230.71	97,631.62	98,128.29
3 classes	–	97,389.49	97,995.67
4 classes	–	97,346.31	97,972.11
5 classes	–	97,379.28

Table 4. Response probabilities in latent classes

		c1	c2	c3	c4
		Reputational recruiters	Rounded recruiters	Human capitalists	Recusant recruiters
Percent of European companies in the group		23.9%	29.8%	15.6%	30.7%
Reputational capital	Very important	0.40	0.05	0	0.05
	Rather important	0.47	0.30	0.07	0.21
	Rather unimportant	0.12	0.52	0.45	0.37
	Completely not important	0	0.13	0.49	0.36
Networking capital	Very frequently	0.13	0.06	0.03	0.03
	Rather frequently	0.16	0.15	0.06	0.09
	Sometimes	0.34	0.48	0.24	0.37
	Never	0.37	0.31	0.67	0.52
Human capital – generic (summary score for 3 features; the more points the more important)	4 = 11–12 points	0.58	0.48	0.52	0.08
	3 = 10 points	0.26	0.32	0.24	0.19
	2 = 9 points	0.11	0.16	0.12	0.33
	1 = up to 8 points	0.04	0.04	0.11	0.39
Human capital – technical (summary score for 2 features; the more points the more important)	4 = 8 points	0.67	0.36	0.73	0.11
	3 = 7 points	0.24	0.47	0.21	0.31
	2 = 6 points	0.07	0.15	0.04	0.38
	1 = up to 5 points	0.01	0.02	0.01	0.19
Human capital – non-cognitive (summary score for 6 features; the more points the more important)	4 = 24 points	0.47	0.07	0.48	0.07
	3 = 22–23 points	0.30	0.34	0.30	0.17
	2 = 20–21 points	0.18	0.38	0.16	0.23
	1 = up to 19 points	0.06	0.20	0.06	0.53

Table 5. Marginal effects (in percentage points) for latent class membership in model with covariates

		c1	c2	c3	c4
		Reputational recruiters	Rounded recruiters	Human capitalists	Recusant recruiters
Company Size (ref. up to 249 employees)	250 or more employees	6.4***	6.4**	−6.7***	−6.2**
Business Internationalisation (percentage of day-to-day operations involving dealing with people in- or from other countries) (ref. none)	less than 10%	−1.8	14.3***	−6.2***	−6.4**
	10–24%	4.7	29.3***	−8***	−26***
	25–50%	12***	20.7***	−8***	−24.7***
	more than 50%	10.7***	23.9***	−4.7**	−30***
Qualifications intensity (estimated share of employees with higher education level) (ref. up to 10%)	11–30%	5.1**	4.3*	−5.3***	−4.1*
	Over 30%	9.4***	15.2***	−18.8***	−5.8**
Training intensity (percentage of employees with higher education degrees participated in training to update their skills in the past 2 years) (ref. None)	Less than 10%	3.7	16.4***	−5.5**	−14.5***
	10–50%	2.6	28.3***	−9.8***	−21.1***
	More than 50%	1.4	22.6***	−2.8	−21.2***
Workforce globalisation (percentage of employees in the company with higher education degrees recruited from countries outside of Europe) (ref. None)	Less than 5%	3.5	9.5***	−14***	1
	5% or more	23.8***	4.5	−17***	−11.3**
Field of recruitment^ (educational fields from which higher education graduates are mostly recruited) (ref. Social sciences)	Engineering and natural sciences	3.5*	11.4***	−2.4*	−12.5***
	Humanities	2.5	−8.7**	0	6.3*
Industry (ref. Manufacturing)	Mining, electricity, water	12.5***	−19.4***	2.4	4.6
	Construction	11.6***	−11.6***	6.3***	−6.4*
	Transportation	0.8	3.2	−1.8	−2.2
	Information and communication	3.2	−2.2	−0.7	−0.4
	Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles	2	−5.3	3.7*	−0.3
	Accommodation and food service	9.4**	1.1	−6.1	−4.4
	Public administration and human health	12**	−11.7*	0	−0.3
	Financial and insurance activities	−1.9	9	4.8	−11.8**
	Professional, scientific and technical activities	3.7	−13**	12***	−2.7
	Other services	4.3*	−5.5*	5***	−3.8

Note: * Represents variable significant at 0.01, ** significant at .05 level and *** significant at .01 level

^ Fields of recruitment were grouped from 12 initial categories into 3.

Figure 1. Composition of firms' strategies in European countries