| dc.description.abstract | The major objective of the study was to assess the factors that influence the waiting time to first job attainment of University graduates. Specifically, I investigated whether sex, place of residence after graduation, region of origin, course studied at the University, CGPA category, parent’s education status, studying in the preferred institution, studying preferred course and the means of job attainment had a significant relationship with the time graduates take to attain their first job. Primary data was used which was collected using face to face distribution of questionnaires to 150 University graduates currently employed in different sectors that is the business, medical, engineering and the education sectors. The analysis was done using frequencies and percentages, log rank test, Kaplan meier unemployment curves and cox proportional hazard analysis.
From the results, for a univariate analysis, majority of the respondents were females (50.34%) and the rest were male respondents (49.66%), most respondents preferred to live in urban areas (68.46%) compared to rural areas (31.54%). In the bivariate analysis, minority of the factors had a significant association with time taken to attain a first job by graduates. Factors that had a significant influence included region of origin of respondents (chi=17.03, p0.0007) and education status of parent (chi=13.04, p0.005) <0.05. Sex of respondents and course studied were nearly significant since p0.073 and p0.08 were close to p0.05.
In then multivariate analysis of the factors that influence graduate’s waiting time, results indicated the expected hazard to be 0.830 times higher in men as compared to females holding other factors constant. Hazard ratio (0.830) close to 1 implied sex of respondent did not affect employment.
The study recommended that for effective transition of graduates to the labor market, the university should have a fully functioning career service office, which is staffed with ample professionals and optimal resources to provide training on job hunting; to deliver the soft skills effectively; and to arrange job fair programmers, to strengthen relationships with employers. . The university together with its stakeholders should also encourage the provision of entrepreneurship educational practices and trainings to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among graduates and turn them into job creators instead of job seekers. | en_US |
