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This study examined the effect of COVID-19 on the acquisition of employable skills among national service personnel in Ghana.

The study adopted the cross-sectional descriptive survey design from the positivist paradigm to collect data from a sample of 2,263 out of a population of 77,962 trainees (national service personnel) posted to the public (85.1%) and the private (14.9%) sectors for the 2019/2020 service year. Sampling techniques were simple random, stratify and snowball sampling techniques and Google form softcopy questionnaire was used for data collection.

The study found that COVID-19 had made workplaces and work schedules very risky for trainees' acquiring employable skills in Ghana because their employers/trainers' were unable to provide adequate PPEs for trainees. Preventive measures such as mandatory leaves, reduced workload/working hours and shift system had reduced the duration for acquiring employable skills which could affect employability and aggravate graduate unemployment in Ghana. The sustainability and quality of job opportunities presented by COVID-19 to graduate trainees-farming; trading and online teaching could also not be guaranteed.

It was recommended that employers/trainers should provide adequate PPEs, introduce teleworking with the necessary tools and training for their trainees. Educational institutions should provide work-based learning methods in their curricula to enhance employable skills for national service graduates. Government's support for trainees venturing into self-employed job opportunities presented by the COVID-19 was also recommended

It was recommended that employers/trainers should provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), introduce teleworking with the necessary tools and training for their trainees. Government's support for trainees venturing into self-employed job opportunities presented by the COVID-19 was also recommended.

This paper has not been published anywhere.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship perceived employability (the employee's perception about available job opportunities in the external labour market) and performance, accounting for felt job insecurity. Performance is conceptualized broadly in terms of optimal functioning (i.e. in-role performance and helping behaviour) and malfunctioning (i.e. organizational and interpersonal counterproductive work behaviour).

Survey data were collected among 433 Romanian workers.

The authors hypothesize and demonstrate that perceived employability relates positively to optimal functioning, but less so when workers feel insecure: highly employable workers may be high achievers, but withdraw from the organization when they feel insecure. Furthermore, the authors hypothesize that perceived employability relates positively to malfunctioning, the more so when workers feel insecure. Highly employable workers may care less about organizational norms, particularly when they see reasons to violate these norms: felt job insecurity may be such a reason. However, the interaction between perceived employability and felt job insecurity was not significantly related to malfunctioning. Instead, the authors established a main effect of perceived employability on both organizational and interpersonal counterproductive work behaviour.

The paper concludes that perceived employability contributes to optimal functioning when workers feel secure, but it may also bring along some costs in the form of malfunctioning.

Employability has been studied in different disciplines (e.g. occupational health and career) and has been seen as a personal resource with overall positive outcomes. The present research investigates the behavioral implications of (perceived) employability and responds to the recent call of research that perceived employability could have not only positive but also negative behavioral implications. Furthermore, this study aims to reduce the asymmetry of data set and replication of existing results in non-Western economies.

Multinationals were taken as context to test the hypotheses, and a sample of 230 white-collar employees was drawn from fast-moving consumer goods companies. Partial least square–structural equation modeling through SmartPLS was used to analyze the data.

In light of social exchange theory, the present research identified the dark side of employability, which may impair the employer–employee relationship. Perceived employability did not relate significantly with in-role performance, nor did it correlate with organizational citizenship behavior, that is, a discretionary behavior promotes the efficient and effective functioning. However, perceived employability had a positive significant relationship with OCBI, that is, helping supervisors and coworkers with heavy workloads, as well as with counterproductive behaviors.

Employable workers have always been considered key players and an asset for organizations due to their high productivity skills. A balanced employer–employee relationship creates a mutual win; therefore, a carefully drafted human resources policy may help organizations to fulfill the needs of employable workers and reap optimal benefits in terms of productivity. Behavioral training to supervisors/managers may help to assertively deal with employees' negative behavior without further escalation.

The present study suggests a paradoxical perspective in employability – a behavior debate, which is in an initial phase where it is difficult to determine whether employable workers are productive to the organizations or not.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how students perceive their future careers and how university has prepared them to enter the global labor market; student perceptions regarding benefits vs associated costs of pursuing higher education (HE) on employability and earnings; and the anticipated barriers and how to overcome these in pursuit of career sustainability within a career ecosystem.

The authors adopted a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews on a small sample of 38 final year students from a UK university who were also participants in an earlier two-wave quantitative survey, which was conducted with 387 penultimate and final year undergraduates from the same UK-based University.

Findings revealed that undergraduates perceive their investment in HE to offer a net financial gain; however, this is narrowing due to increased tuition fees, associated student debt and interest payments eroding earning premiums. As undergraduates progress, they feel more employable from a personal perspective, but less employable from a market perspective due to competition for graduate jobs and the cost/benefit conflict of resources.

The authors provide nine opportunities for enhancing the employability of graduates collaborating with graduate employers, providing a timely contribution to the social, political and economic debate on the funding of HE.

The authors advance career theory via the new perspective of Career Ecosystem Theory by: explaining student career perceptions in terms of how university has prepared them for the global labor market; exploring the perceived costs vs benefits of pursuing HE in relation to employability; suggesting a two-dimensional model of personal and market factors of employability; providing a model of careers advice from employers and universities for supporting students’ careers; and offering policy implications in relation to the future funding of HE and employability of future graduates.

This paper has the purpose of exploring the potential for entrepreneurship education within veterinary medicine. It aims to examine some of the key themes in the entrepreneurship education literature, discuss the make‐up of the UK veterinary sector, consider veterinary curricula requirements and illustrate how entrepreneurship education can benefit veterinary students.

The approach adopted by the authors includes a literature review, in‐depth discussion and the development of hypotheses for further study.

Entrepreneurship education has the potential to make a valuable contribution to veterinary medicine curricula. This is due to the fact that the majority of veterinary graduates will work in or even own/co‐own a veterinary business (i.e. a small veterinary practice) at some point in their career. In this context, the authors illustrate how entrepreneurship education can enhance both employable and day one/year one skills. The high entry requirements for veterinary programmes and the gender shift towards a predominantly female under‐ and postgraduate population add further interesting dimensions to the paper and present possible avenues for further research.

This is a conceptual paper and it is fully recognised that the concepts and hypotheses proposed need to be further developed and tested at the empirical level. Some interesting avenues for future research that could contribute significantly to this field are also identified.

The paper highlights the potential value of incorporating entrepreneurship education within veterinary curricula. It also identifies how such incorporation can enhance students' employable skills and deliver many of the skills included in veterinary medicine's day one/year one competences' agenda.

There has been an increase in the number of highly qualified management graduates specialized in finance from various esteemed universities in India, thus increasing the competition for finance job roles in the country. This, therefore, brings in the need for the employees or the prospective candidates to mold their soft skills so as to make them desirable by the companies and hence employable. The purpose of this paper is to provide a list of skills required by management graduates to become employable for finance job roles from the perspective of corporate executives. This list will enable prospective candidates to prepare themselves for a career in the field of finance.

The research was carried out through the collection of data from 117 finance professionals with a minimum work experience of 5 years with the help of structured questionnaires. This was then analyzed through factor analysis and the list of 15 factors was obtained.

A list of 15 essential factors was obtained through the analysis of the data. The essential skills included empathetic and judicious behavior, professional etiquette and employee well-being, ethical behavior, conflict management, change analysis and prediction; practicality and organizational presence of mind; social and moral presence of mind; self-confidence and effective written communication; effective interpersonal communication and employee value systems; responsibility and self-awareness; problem diagnosis and problem-solving; real-time work and activity experience; professional development and advancement; technology rationalization and effective information generation. The findings also included that a candidate should be able to effectively present crucial information and should possess practical advisory skills.

The study will be highly beneficial for management graduates who have specialized in finance to secure finance job roles in India. This paper will enable the students to prepare themselves in the essential soft skills required for these job roles apart from technical knowledge and hard skills.

The purpose of this paper is to understand MBA skill transfer, employability and how work-integrated learning (WIL) can help in ensuring the availability of employable managers after the completion of MBA. India faces a major crisis in terms of finding employable workforce despite its huge population. The paper explores the question of employability. It focuses on how WIL can be used to facilitate transfer of skills, which ultimately leads to a more employable workforce.

Existing research was studied to establish linkages between WIL and skill transfer. The existing skill gaps in MBA education, which lead to unemployable business graduates, were also revealed.

The literature studied suggests that there is a positive impact of obtaining an MBA degree on the employability of business graduates. However, there is no concrete evidence to show that the impact is big enough to cover the cost and time spent on pursuing the degree. The paper also reveals the various types of WIL modules being followed by some universities to improve skill transfer and to ensure that graduates are work-ready.

Though the question of employability poses a serious threat to the Indian education as well as the industry, little has been done to assess the ways in which the graduates can be made employable. WIL is also being practiced in a very narrow sense and only by institutes of repute. WIL is being practiced in certain countries and the Indian business schools can use these programmes as a guide.

The paper studies the question of employability from the point of view of the Indian economy and educational institutions. It draws from the experiences of other countries in trying to include WIL into the degree programme to facilitate skill transfer.

Research reveals that the built environment graduates are not matching the needs of the 21st century construction industry. Evidence shows that the built environment academics (BEA) struggle to reskill and upskill to meet the industry's demand. Studies about Nigeria's BEA's perceived barriers in meeting the 21st-century industry demands are scarce. Thus, the paper investigated the perceived barriers and measures to improve BEA in Nigeria's 21st-century world of teaching. The outcome intends to enhance teaching practices and increase employability in the built environment disciplines.

Data were sourced from elite virtual interviews across Nigeria. The participants were well informed about Nigeria's built environment education and the possible barriers hindering 21st-century teaching from improving employable graduates in the built environment professionals (BEP). The researchers adopted a thematic analysis for the collected data and supplemented the data with secondary sources.

The study shows that BEA needs to improve BEA's teaching mechanism. Improving BEA will enable the built environment graduates to meet the minimum standards expected by the 21st-century industry. Findings categorised the perceived 22 barriers facing BEA into internal stakeholders-related barriers, external stakeholders-related barriers, and common barriers. Also, findings proffered practicable measures to improve BEA in the workplace via improved industry collaboration and technological advancement.

The research is restricted to the perceived barriers and measures to improve BEA in 21st-century teaching in Nigeria via a qualitative research design. Future research should validate the results and test the paper's proposed framework.

The paper confirms that the BEA requires stakeholder collaboration and technological advancement measures to improve teaching in the 21st century, leading to enhanced employability graduates. The paper would stir major stakeholders, especially BEA, and advance the quality of employable graduates in the Nigerian built environment professions.

The thematic network and proposed framework could be employed to stimulate Nigeria's BEA for better service delivery. This intends to create an enabling environment that will enhance stakeholders' collaboration and technological advancement for the BEA to produce better employable graduates in the 21st century.

This article focuses on the perception gaps between teachers and students of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) related to garment production and the reasons behind such gaps. Garment production is the priority sector for the Ethiopian government, which plans to make it the driver of export-oriented growth. At the same time, it is among the programs that demonstrate the lowest employment rates.

A questionnaire was developed by the authors. It was completed by 162 students and 53 teachers in garment-related programs of seven TVET colleges in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

The findings show that while teachers tend to highlight the importance of practical skills, students desire broader coverage of practical and managerial skills and entrepreneurship. The expectations differ not only based on the person's recognition of labor market conditions but also by the conviction of the efficacy of the education and training system itself. Teachers tend to be persistent on conventional approaches of teaching, while the advanced training on new approaches based on the competency-based training (CBT) significantly impacts on their attitude. Meanwhile, students' perceptions are largely based on their job aspirations and motivations for schooling.

The authors’ findings may serve to improve the relevance of the Ethiopian Occupation Standards.

The unique feature of this study is that the authors measure skills from multiple dimensions. While the authors examine participants' perceptions of occupation-specific skills, they also analyze the relationships of these perceptions with attitudinal and cognitive skills.

The world is seeing a large deficit in employable workforce. An employable workforce is developed with appropriate combination of academic and practical skills. Practical skills are better developed with industry intervention rather than in classrooms. Changing trends of economic activity have steadily changed the business thought. The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of industry in developing employability by studying employability from the value chain and “Demand-Supply” of workforce models. The scope is limited to Indian context. This paper is a part of the research on factors influencing employability in India.

Literature review, expert interviews and authors’ own experiences and understanding.

It has been found that most of the countries in the world are facing a shortage of skilled and employable workforce. We examined various literature content and studied specific instances in the Industry. The study has shown that in the cases where industry has been actively involved in identifying training needs, the supply of manpower has been adequate. So, it is found that industry's role in employability is crucial and impacts on other macro policies for human development.

As this paper is a part of a larger study on “Factors impacting employability in India,” it is of paramount importance to Indian researchers, students and policy makers. The paper and the research are oriented to identifying causes to the problem of employability, so that systemic changes can be identified.

This paper is based on large amount of literature that is existing in various sources. All the literature has been thoroughly read and assimilated. Suitable references have cited and others have been acknowledged. Most importantly this is an original work of the authors and their views.