Job opportunities and school-to-work transitions in occupational labour markets. Are occupational change and unskilled employment after vocational education interrelated?

Background This study links TREE panel data surveying school-to-work transitions in Switzerland with unique job advertising data from the Swiss Job Market Monitor that mirrors individual job opportunities. We investigate: (i) whether occupational change and unskilled entry level employment are two related transition outcomes among graduates from initial vocational education and training (IVET) in the occupational labour market of Switzerland. Our analysis further focuses on (ii) the impact of a low number of occupation-specific job opportunities on the risk of such a combined horizontal and vertical job-education mismatch, and (iii) the extent to which overall labour demand facilitates occupational changes to skilled employment. Methods We make use of bivariate probit analysis to investigate occupational change and unskilled entry employment among IVET graduates as interrelated transition outcomes. Results The empirical results suggest that occupational change and unskilled entry employment are two interrelated transition outcomes among IVET graduates in Switzerland. The results further support our hypothesis that a low number of occupation-specific job vacancies at labour market entry increase the risk of simultaneously experiencing both forms of job-education mismatches for IVET graduates. High overall labour demand enables occupational changes to skilled employment. Conclusions We conclude that for an integration of IVET graduates into occupationally and educationally matching positions it is crucial that the IVET programmes offered match labour demand on an occupational basis.