Employment Expectations of New Engineering Graduates and the Demands of Labor Market: A Case Study

The unemployment of fresh engineering graduates has been an issue in this modern world where the outcome from the educational institutions does not meet most of the expectations of the employers. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is planning to decrease the unemployment rate from 12.5% to 7% by 2030, which is very important to create alignment between the job market and the education system to fill this gap. The objective of this paper to discover the type of skills and abilities needed in the labor market to enhance the competencies of fresh graduates through conducting three different surveys for students, employers, and faculty members around KSA. Results show that employers believe that fresh graduates barely can exceed 75% of job requirements (Knowledge, Skills, and Experience). Also, the labor market demands proficiency of the English language while the level of students do not meet the expectation. Moreover, gender is the main factor causing this gap as female engineers have way less possibility to be hired in the Saudi market compared to male engineers. The study suggests that more collaboration is needed between governmental institutions to fill this gap.