How compatible is the Supply of Vocational Education and Training Graduates with Labor Market Demand in Turkey?
Abstract
The transition of a country's graduates with vocational skills into the labor market indicates both the efficiency of vocational education and training (VET) and economic development. Many countries have conducted studies to monitor and match the expectations of the labor market with students’ preferences. Scholars and policymakers in Turkey have long debated the compatibility of the level of VET graduates’ skills and needs of the labor market and called for field studies to form a basis for national policy. The current study examine the relationship between open job positions in diverse professions, as indicated by İŞKUR's 2019 Labor Market Research (IPA), and the vocational fields of VET students at the regional level. The skills required by the open positions and the vocational fields in which these skills were acquired are linked in this study to evaluate their compatibility. The research findings showed remarkable differences between the demands of the labor market and the supply of VET graduates across Turkey. In some vocational fields, the imbalance occurred simultaneously across multiple regions. The results emphasize the importance of improving the balance between supply-and-demand at both the regional and provincial level to increase the compatibility between labor market demands and supply in VET.
Keywords
Vocational education and training, Supply and demand, Skills mismatch, Labor market, Supply of graduates
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