Graduate employability and the propensity to learn in employment: a new vocationalism

This article is about graduate employment, unemployment and underemployment.It looks at the development of employability skills inuniversity education as a response to evidence of the unemployment andunderemployment of new graduates and assesses the impact of thatresponse. The article then offers another approach to graduateemployability based on the behaviour of graduate employers asreflected in data on graduate employment. The approach focuses on thedevelopment of students'willingness and ability to learn in employment.The article concludes by showing that this approach can reconcile thedevelopment of graduate employability with the traditional concerns of university education and with the preparation of students for lifelong learning.