Modern Problems of the Integration of Graduates in the Czech Labour Market

Problem Statement: Modern development trends in the labour market are more often discussed political and economic issue. General increase in the unemployment rate becomes serious, not only macroeconomic but also microeconomic problem that is solved at the level of governments of many countries. Among the unemployed, different risk groups of job applicants are created, who in the long run cannot find an employment within the segments of the labour market. In recent years, serious problems in the labour market have appeared among school graduates. Despite the increasing level of education among young people, since economic crisis in 2008, their employability is still getting worse. This phenomenon is not only a national problem of the Czech Republic but of many countries within the European Union. Purpose of Study: The number of university graduates grew significantly in the Czech Republic in recent years and parallelly with this development, the number of unemployed people has increased because of the university graduates. Generally, the problem of unemployment is usually associated with the deteriorating economic situation of the country. When employing the school graduates, not only macroeconomic factors, but also other factors can play an important role. The question is what the other factors are and to what extent they influence the success of university graduates in the Czech labour market. Methods: In the article, methods of primary and secondary research are applied. The primary research was carried out in the form of a questionnaire survey among students of Tomas Bata University in Zlin in 2011. In total, 598 questionnaires were processed using standard statistical methods. Secondary research was based on data about the development of employment and unemployment among school graduates which was published by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and by the Czech Statistical Office. Findings and Results: The economic situation of the country is undoubtedly one of the factors that affect the employability of job applicants. Research also demonstrates other problems that may adversely affect employment of university graduate in the labour market. Most of the respondents have unrealistic ideas about the actual needs of the Czech labour market. The professional distinctiveness among most of them is rather very weak and independent of the study field. Conclusions and Recommendations: Modern approaches of university graduates to the working life can lead to the growing asymmetry of information in the labour market. The quality of job applicants with higher education from the perspective of work performance may be different. The employer can hardly distinguish whether the individual is really interested in the particular field. A university degree as a signal is failing in the Czech labour market. Without the intervention of the appropriate state authority to the education system in accordance with the real requirements of the Czech labour market, there can arise a socio-economic problem. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (fittp://creativecommons.orgilicenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).