Good fit between education and labour market protects against job loss

The study shows that a good match between the education followed and labour market protected against job loss during the Covid-19 pandemic. MBO graduates who indicated that their education provided a good basis to start on the labour market or who reported pre-Covid-19 a good match between the education followed and their job -both in terms of level and direction- were less affected by the economic hard times due to the Covid-19 pandemic: they lost significantly less of their jobs due to this pandemic.

MBO graduates from school year 2018-2019

The study further shows that young people with an MBO diploma at levels 1 and 2, those who have completed studies in a sector hit harder by the Covid-19 measures, as well as those with a non-western migration background, were more likely to lose their jobs than their fellow graduates. This applies to all mbo graduates, who graduated between 2017 and 2019, but mainly to the most recent mbo graduates, who graduated in 2019, a few months before the pandemic outbreak. Relative to older cohorts, it appears that mbo graduates from school year 2018-2019 were more likely to have temporary contracts and lower hourly wages during the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, it took these mbo graduates a relatively long time to find their first job, and it appears that they were more often re-enrolled in education one year after graduation (year 2020-2021).

Method

The study was conducted using survey data on secondary vocational education (mbo) school leavers who graduated in 2016-2017, 2017-2018 or 2018-2019 and were surveyed a year and a half later. Their data is linked to microdata files on employment and wages from CBS. We compare the 2018-2019 cohort that entered the labour market at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic with the remaining cohorts that had been in the labour market for some time when the Covid-19 pandemic started.