This chapter introduces the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, questions of the study, significance of the study, as well as the definition of terms.
Background of the Study
The technology is rapidly evolving due to globalization. In order to compete with other countries, nations around the world emphasize the development of the technology. The technology industry is a key industry in Taiwan. Likewise, Taiwan’s government put more emphases on scientific and technological (S&T) development such as adding more resources on science and technology or being devoted to developing S&T workforce (National Science Council, 2007). Hence, there is a demand for technical human resources. However, according to a report revealed by Manpower (2008), Taiwanese employers have a difficulty in recruiting information technology (IT) staff.
While the technology companies meet difficulty in finding enough employees, however, according to a report of the Ministry of Education, the number of higher educated people was growing. The number of undergraduates had soared by 79.5%; the number of postgraduates had soared by 104% from 2001 to 2005. As shown in Table 1.1, both in master’s and bachelor’s programs, there are the most students majoring in the field of science and technology.
Table 1.1.
Taiwan students graduating from higher education by field
Academic year (AY)
Program Field
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Humanities 2,788 3,986 4,949 6,034 7,002 Social sciences 4,912 6,472 8,225 9,850 12,149 Science and technology 13,052 15,442 17,682 20,097 23,183 Master’s
program
Persons subtotal 20,752 25,900 30,856 35,981 42,334 Humanities 21,285 23,600 26,595 29,440 31,729 Social sciences 38,750 67,363 62,614 70,378 77,932 Science and technology 57,395 72,308 86,835 93,036 101,102 Bachelor’s
program
Persons subtotal 117,430 146,166 176,044 192,854 210,763 Total persons 138,182 172,066 206,900 228,835 253,097 Source: National Science Council, 2007.
Even though schools developed considerable amounts of students for workforces, companies had problems of recruiting sufficient IT staff. This indicates an existing gap between the needs in industry and the higher education systems.
The phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education is getting worse in Taiwan (Yen & Yeh, 1997; Wang, 2000). Many literatures stated that high educated people had higher risk in underutilization (Yen & Yeh, 1997; Yeh, 2001), while few studies further discussed whether graduates with bachelor degree were more likely to be underutilized than those with master degree. And according to Yen & Yeh (1997), they suggested that high educated people would face the dilemma of being unemployed or being inadequately utilized because they could not easily find jobs equal to their education level (Mai & Tsai, 2003).
In addition, Wang (2000) argued that if a jobseeker’s unemployment time was too long to tolerate, one might find a job below one’s education level. There are a lot of research
discussed that people with higher education level had shorter unemployment time (Kettunen, 1997; Mills, 2001; Audas, Berde & Dolton, 2005), but limited literature discussed whether graduates with bachelor degree or master degree both could quickly find jobs.
Table 1.2 showed that the unemployment rate for people with a college education or higher degree was high, around four percent. Moreover, the unemployment rate for people with a university education or higher degree was not only increasing, but also larger than the total unemployment rate in past years. The results implied that people with higher education would be likely to be unemployed.
Table 1.2.
Unemployment rate by education level
Junior college or higher degree Year Total (%)
Total (%) Junior college (%) University or higher degree (%)
2001 4.57 3.72 4.03 3.32
2002 5.17 4.28 4.6 3.89
2003 4.99 4.09 4.32 3.82
2004 4.44 4.06 4.02 4.11
2005 4.13 4.01 3.78 4.23
2006 3.91 3.98 3.55 4.36
2007 3.91 4 3.36 4.51
Source: Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Education, 2008.
In Taiwan, after the educational reform, the number of undergraduates is increasing (Table 1.1). With the high unemployment rate, more bachelor’s graduates would like to study further (Huang, 2008). A Taiwanese magazine, “Global view”, revealed that most master’s graduates believed that after gaining the master degree, they could easily find jobs. This thought encouraged more bachelor’s graduates to pursue master degree in order to enhance their competitiveness of employment. Also, the survey revealed that most master’s graduates believed that educational background was more critical than work experience.
In addition, although the quantity of undergraduates is increasing, about 90 percent of companies considered that the quality of them is not increasing as well (Mai & Tsai, 2003).
Hence, while people with bachelor degree and people with master degree contended for a job, many companies would hire people with master degree (Mai & Tsai, 2003). Therefore, it seems that people with master degree could easily and quickly find jobs, and might be more likely to be well utilized.
Further, work values might be related to either jobsearch duration or overeducation. For higher educated people, most of them would rather take time to find a satisfied job, where the job choice is influenced by work values (Chen & Liu, 1995; Lin, 1996). Therefore, in order to get a satisfied job, they might either spend more time on searching a job, or be overeducated.
However, ample literatures discussed about the relationship between work values and job satisfaction, while seldom research examined whether the perceived work value was significantly different between people with bachelor degree and people with master degree and whether jobseekers with certain work values would be more likely to be overeducated or take more time to look for a job.
Purposes of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine the phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education in terms of bachelor’s and master’s graduates who majored in the engineering and technology. Further purposes are demonstrated as follows.
1. To investigate whether the phenomenon of education-employment mismatch exists among bachelor’s and master’s graduates.
2. To examine whether there exist a significant difference in jobsearch duration among bachelor’s and master’s graduates.
3. To identity if there is a relationship between the work values and education-employment mismatch among jobseekers with bachelor degree and master degree.
Questions of the Study
There are questions that generated from the study:
1. Is there a relationship between education attainment and education-employment mismatch?
2. Is the jobsearch duration of master’s graduates shorter than that of bachelor’s graduates?
3. Are the perceived work values significantly different between bachelor’s and master’s graduates?
4. Is there a positive relationship between jobsearch duration and education-employment mismatch?
5. Is there a positive relationship between work values and education-employment mismatch?
6. Is there a relationship between work values and jobsearch duration?
This research focused on the phenomenon of education-employment mismatch in the technology industry, so the sample of the study is delimited to graduates with bachelor degree and master degree and whose majors were in the field of science and technology (engineering and technology in particular). Therefore, the phenomenon of education-employment mismatch among graduates majoring in the field of humanities and social sciences cannot be identified through this study.
Significance of the Study
The technology industry is one of important industries in Taiwan, so the government has been actively devoted to cultivating the technical workforces. Through this study, the utilization of IT human resources will be explored. It can be indicated whether a phenomenon of education-employment mismatch exists among technical human resources with bachelor degree and master degree, namely, whether human resources developed by schools for the IT industry were inadequately utilized. As a result, the findings of the study might help explain why companies encountered difficulty in recruiting IT staff. Furthermore, the findings could help examine the stereotype of master’s graduates having the advantage of obtaining a job.
In addition, the reason why technology companies can be competitive is partly because that they could recruit and retain talents. And understanding the work values of jobseekers could help companies recruit and retain good employees (Tsai, 2004). Also, through this study, the perspective of bachelor’s and master’s graduates on work values can be identified, so employers might take into account while recruiting.
Definition of Terms
Educational Attainment
Educational attainment refers to the highest degree an individual has received (US Census Bureau). In the study, the levels of educational attainment are restricted to bachelor degree and master degree.
Field of Science and Technology
According to Ministry of Education, it classified the students into three fields (humanities, social sciences, and science and technology) by program. Further, the field of science and technology can be categorized into four groups: natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences, and agricultural sciences (National Science Council, 2004), and the researcher focused on engineering and technology in the study.
Mismatch between Employment and Education
In this research, there are two perspectives of mismatch between employment and education. One perspective is overeducation, and the other one is mismatch. First, overeducation is that the education level required for the job is lower than one’s (Wang, 2000;
Wirz & Erdal, 2005). For instance, if a college graduate obtains a job which requires a junior college degree or below, s/he is overeducated.
On the other hand, mismatch is that one’s work in an occupational field is unrelated to one’s educational backgrounds (Wang, 2000; Wirz & Erdal, 2005). If an individual’s work is not or somewhat related to their degree field, s/he is classified as mismatched, while if one’s work is mostly or closely related to one’s degree field, one is matched.
Jobsearch Duration
Ghukasyan (2008) described jobsearch duration as “the time period between job search and job placement” (p.15). In the study, jobsearch duration, and unemployment duration are interchangeably utilized.
Work Values
Work values are any entity (object, behavior, situation) on which an individual place a high importance in the work context (Elizur, Borg, Hunt, & Beck, 1991).