ABSTRACT
The relationship between higher education (HE) and labour market has never been so contested as in the last decade. There are continuous and sharpened debates about whether the UK labour market can keep up with the growth of HE in creating 'graduate level' jobs. In addition, considerable political heat has been generated over who should pay for HE, as the earning prospects of many graduates have been below expectations. This chapter argues that the policy drive to reform HE as a means of improving graduate employability and narrowing social inequalities, is difficult to reconcile with today's labour market. The employability skills that are becoming part of the formal curriculum in many universities bear little relationship to the way employers recruit for 'graduate' jobs. The chapter reviews the existing literature on graduate employability and then discusses some of the evidence on graduate employment. It describes the limitations of the recent employability-focused drive to improve labour market outcomes for graduates.
