SURVEY OF GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT

Contents

1. OVERVIEW OF THE SURVEY
2. EMPLOYMENT AND FURTHER TRAINING OF FIRST LEVEL GRADUATES
3. EMPLOYMENT TRENDS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-REFORM GRADUATES
4. IN-DEPTH STUDIES
5. METHODOLOGICAL NOTES

The survey of the employment careers of graduates from the member universities of the AlmaLaurea Consortium ¹ is now in its eighth edition.

The research project, which has been running for some years now (all the documentation material, including previous reports, with breakdown charts of individual universities and departments, is available on Internet at www.almalaurea.it aims to investigate the employment and further training careers of graduates in the first five years after receiving their degrees.

The survey was conducted between September and November 2005 and targeted graduates who had received their degrees in the summer sessions of 2004, 2002 and 2000 ² In December 2005, just a few weeks after the survey was concluded, the first results including breakdown charts of universities and faculties, were sent to the rectors of the universities participating in the survey.

This year the survey was extended to cover 36 universities³ (including, for the first time, Bolzano, Calabria, Foggia, Perugia, Reggio Calabria, Roma La Sapienza⁴ , Roma Tre, Venezia Ca’ Foscari and Verona). Thanks to fruitful cooperation with the universities (which also bore part of the costs) and the contribution of the Ministry for Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research, the survey investigated a total of 75 thousand graduates, including 38,899 at one year from graduation (of whom 28,602 were pre-reform graduates), 21,404 at three years and 14,962 at five years.

Thanks to its remarkable breadth, the survey is able to provide each of the participating universities with analytical documentation and breakdowns by faculty and degree grade as is done in the Graduate Profile⁵ . As agreed by AlmaLaurea and the member universities, the results regarding the graduates’ employment and postgraduate careers are delivered to each university in the following three distinct timeframes:

• in December each year, the initial results of the recently completed survey are delivered to the university governing bodies;
• the final results regarding graduate entry into the job market are published in February, these refer to the overall group of graduates examined and are broken down by degree courses. The results collected in this Report and available on the Internet are presented during a specially held national conference;
• in the summer, each university is sent the processed data concerning their own graduates with in-depth studies and analyses with breakdown charts by faculty. The relevant micro-data is also made available to the universities, allowing them to analyse the survey in more detail and to trace the results back to the original degree courses/categories.

Taken on an annual basis, the group survey represented one third of all Italian graduates, and hence gives a significant frame of reference for the entire Italian university system. The composition of the population surveyed virtually mirrors that of the general graduate population in Italy in terms of gender and degree course grouping. It does, however, contain a geographical bias with an overrepresentation of graduates who obtained their degrees in universities based in northern Italian universities and an under-representation of graduates from universities based in central and southern Italy.

Nevertheless, the main employment indicators generated by the AlmaLaurea survey are not significantly different from those observed in the national statistical data. According to surveys conducted by ISTAT (Italy’s National Statistical Office) in 2004, which looked at a representative sample of pre-reform graduates who gained their degree in 2001 (interviewed three years after receiving their qualification), the rate of employment was found to be only 1 percentage point below the figure arrived at by AlmaLaurea for the same period and for the same cohorts⁶ .

The sample population of graduates examined in this Report is broken down into two components: pre-reform and post-reform graduates. This inevitably increases the complexity of the studies and the related difficulties of interpretation; a fact that was clear ever since the first analysis of the Graduate Profile was presented in 2004, when we warned that “ the complexity of the documentation presented and the caution needed to interpret it require such specialist knowledge of the university system at this stage of its evolution that its usefulness will be restricted almost exclusively to those directly involved in it”⁷.

Pre-reform graduates⁸ . In this transition stage between the old and the new system⁹ , it is essential to analyse carefully the make up of the different cohorts investigated so as to evaluate accurately the employment findings and the most recent job market trends. This is even more important if we consider the fact that, potentially, the pre-reform graduates who have graduated from the Italian university system are the “last” in an education process that had already been set in motion to entirely replace old courses with the newly introduced ones. First-level graduates, on the other hand, are the “first” to have fully experienced the university Reform. In actual fact, specific studies conducted on the different cohorts of pre-reform graduates (all summer session graduates), suggest that the make up of cohorts has not varied significantly, at least for the time being. There has, however, been a 3 percentage point variation in the gender make up of graduates between 1999 and 2004, with women graduates having increased from 56% to 59%. Where make up by degree course is concerned, the only variation worthy of note relates to a reduction from 19.5% to 16% of graduates from the economics-statistics group. Finally, in the time period under consideration, the make up on the basis of place of residence shows a reduction in the relative weight of northern Italy (from 44% to 38%) and an increase in those residing in southern Italy (from 35% to 40%)¹⁰.

The indicators linked to success in academic study suggest that pre-reform graduate performance has not deteriorated in the course of time. The rate of completion of studies has actually improved (graduates completing their course within the prescribed period have increased from 5% to 8% and those within one year of the prescribed period have increased from 14% to 21%) ¹¹ , while average grades have remained unchanged (average grade approximately 103 out of a maximum of 110). Finally, the average age at graduation has remained constant over time and continues to fluctuate around 27-28 years of age.

The proportion of graduates stating that they have gained work experience during their academic studies has increased – a fact that is worth underlining since it might influence employment results. If we leave the 2004 cohort aside (since the question dealing with work experience during academic study was formulated differently) the percentage is found to have increased from 56% for the class of 1999 graduates to 64% for the class of 2003 graduates ¹². In practice, however, it seems that over the course of time this factor has not influenced employment rate trends and these will be examined further in later sections.

First level graduates. For the first time, the survey of graduate employment takes into account the graduates who completed their study programs with a first level degree. The cohort includes a total of 10,297 post-reform graduates from the summer session of 2004¹³.

The attempt to compare first level graduates and pre-reform graduates in terms of their structural characteristics, study performance, and employment and further training careers is clearly a difficult undertaking and only feasible at the formal level. During the transition stage, which is characterised by the gradual disappearance of traditional study programs and the progressive introduction of the new system, the coexistence of populations with different final goals and very often with significantly different profiles represents a real problem. At this particular stage, as will be examined in more detail later, graduate profiles influence at least partly the employment and further training careers of the two cohorts. Furthermore, even among the first level graduates there is a great deal of diversity between different types of graduates. Clearly, the very first post-reform graduates (defined in this Report as “regular under-23s”, i.e. those completing the new 3-year first level degree in the regulation time), unburdened by transition measures or changes from previous degree course programs prove to be the very best graduates in terms of the performance-based findings and, as such, often reach high levels of excellence.

Bearing these caveats in mind, a comparison between pre-reform graduates and post-reform graduates shows an increase in the number of first level graduates in the political and social sciences and the engineering groups (17% and 14.3% respectively compared to 10% of the graduates under the old system) and a fall of over 12 percentage points for first level graduates in the law studies group (from 15.2% for pre-reform graduates to 2.8%).

The women’s component is dominant in both cohorts, although the gender difference is lower among first level graduates. Women in fact represent almost 59% of the pre-reform graduates and 54.5% of the first level graduates. The difference in gender distribution therefore translates into a difference of 17 percentage points higher for women among graduates from the old system and of almost 9 points among first level graduates.

The two cohorts show significant differences in terms of areas of residence. Specifically, over 50% of first level graduates live in northern Italy (“just” 38% of pre-reform graduates), while the rest are equally distributed between central and southern Italy.

The study performance indicators show that the three-year course graduates perform better in terms of the time taken to complete their degree course, but this is obviously due to the fact that we are dealing with the very first post-reform graduates, who are necessarily the best and the quickest to complete their degrees. Almost 38 graduates out of a hundred gained their qualification within the prescribed time (as opposed to only 8% for graduates from the old system). However, only a portion of these graduates – defined as regular under-23s and representing 20% of the cohort under investigation (2,092 graduates in all) – were unburdened by transition measures or by changes from previous degree course programs.

Average grades of first level graduates are slightly lower than those of their pre-reform counterparts, with the average grades around 102 as against 103 respectively. Finally, the average age at graduation shows no significant difference, fluctuating around 27 years of age. This, however, is due to the variable age within the cohort of first level graduates. It should be emphasised that at this stage of the transition from the old to the new system, only a small proportion of graduates (20%, as pointed out earlier) has completed the entire study program set by the Reform within the prescribed age. Regular under-23s graduates have achieved excellent results (44% graduated with top grades) and more of these come from higher social classes and from families where at least one of the parents has a university degree than their “non regular” graduate counterparts. The number of regular under-23s graduates is significantly higher in the group of graduates in the geo-biology subject area (14.2%) and, to a less significant extent, in the psychology and law groups. On the other hand, it should be noted, that there is a higher incidence of graduates with “non regular” academic careers among the teaching and political and social sciences groups. Moreover, as a confirmation of the complex stage of deep change that has affected medical degree courses – resulting in the acquisition of a first level degree by a large proportion of the paramedical staff who already held a university diploma – it can be seen that there are no regular under-23s whatsoever in the medical group. This fact will have to be taken into account when interpreting the employment and further training careers of first level graduates.

The level of interest elicited among graduates by the survey since it started, the care with which it was conducted ¹⁴ , and the constant updating of its databanks ¹⁵ is demonstrated by the extremely high response rates achieved. The response rate was in fact 86% for pre-reform graduates at one year from graduation, 81% for those at three years, and 76% for those at five years. For first level graduates, the response rate was almost 88%. The survey results can thus be considered as highly significant and make the documentation extremely reliable.

Representative estimates of Italian graduates. As was pointed out earlier, while the graduates examined by the AlmaLaurea survey of graduate employment come from an increasingly significant number of Italian universities, they still fall short of representing the total number of graduates. Moreover, since the number of universities involved in the survey increases every year, this raises the question of comparability between the AlmaLaurea cohorts over the course of time. To overcome these two problems and to provide representative estimates of the entire Italian graduate population, the results (concerning pre-reform graduates) of the last six AlmaLaurea surveys on graduate employment have been subjected to the reproportioning procedure that is specifically applied in such cases¹⁶.

The employment rate of first level graduates at one year from graduation is at 54.5% (in line with the employment situation of pre-reform graduates which stands at 53.7%). Of these, 36.2% are exclusively occupied in work while the remaining 18.3% are set on pursuing a master’s degree (known in Italian as “laurea magistrale”) while working at the same time. The proportion of graduates who only pursue master’s degree courses, on the other hand, is 36.1%, bringing the total percentage of graduates pursing postgraduate studies to over 54 (54.4)%.

Finally, of the first level graduates who are neither in employment nor enrolled for postgraduate degrees only 6% state that they are seeking employment¹⁷.

As might reasonably be expected, the employment situation of the more than 2000 regular under-23s graduates is entirely peculiar. Of these, only a quarter are in employment (most of them while pursuing further studies) and an even smaller proportion (6.6%) is only occupied in work, despite the excellent performances in terms of degree completion times and age at graduation of this cohort. The great majority of them, as will become clearer later in the Report, are pursing full-time study (72%).

The situation however, proves to be highly diversified when we consider the various different degree courses taken by the graduates. Almost all the fresh graduates from the medical group are already in employment at one year from graduation (87.2% are only occupied in work and 8.3% are working and studying at the same time). These are graduates from the healthcare-related professions (nursing, rehabilitation and prevention) who were already employed at the time when they received their qualification and frequently continue in their previous jobs. For partly similar reasons, the employment opportunities of first level graduates from the teaching group prove to be very good and their employment rate at one year from graduation is over 72% (of whom 21% are both working and enrolled on a postgraduate course). In fact, over 43% of these working graduates are continuing in the jobs they had started before graduating, while nearly a third were not working when they received their degree. The same conditions also apply to those who graduated in the political and social sciences, where the employment rate is higher than the average (63% of graduates are working, of whom over half are still in the job they had started before obtaining their degree), and one fifth of these graduates are both working and enrolled for a postgraduate qualification.

I percorsi di studio in corrispondenza dei quali si rileva il maggior numero di laureati iscritti alla laurea specialistica sono quello psicologico (86 su cento, 31 dei quali lavorano anche) e il geo-biologico (83 su cento, 16 dei quali anche occupati).

The degree subject areas which have the highest incidence of graduates enrolled for postgraduate qualifications are psychology (86%, 31 of whom are also working), and geo-biology (83%, including 16% who are also working).

Finally, among the groups found to be best able to combine postgraduate study and employment (in addition to those from teaching, psychology and political and social sciences mentioned earlier), we should also include those who studied letters (21%), of whom 42% of those in employment are still in the job they had started before receiving their degrees.

The evidence shows that a higher proportion of those pursuing master’s degree courses hold a first level degree in one of the technical-scientific subject areas ¹⁸ (57.9%), than their counterparts from the human and social sciences¹⁹ (52%). As might reasonably be expected, those from the first groups also include a significantly higher proportion of graduates who are exclusively occupied in further academic study (43.3% as opposed to 31.1%) and, consequently, a lower proportion of graduates attempting to work and study simultaneously (14.6 as opposed to 20.9%). The groups from the two subject areas, however, show similar proportions of graduates who are only in employment (35.3% and 36.8% respectively). Consequently the overall employment rate shows a significant difference between the two groups, where graduates from the human and social sciences have a higher employment rate than those from the technical-scientific areas (58% and 50% respectively).

Courses approved by the Ministry for Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research (MIUR). The survey allows further analysis to be conducted on the findings and evaluations of graduates from several degree courses that are part of a specially designed project to boost postgraduate students numbers ²⁰.

Boosted by a large presence of regular under-23s graduates at one year from graduation, those who choose to continue their education with a second level degree tend to come particularly from the group of physical science and technology and from the mathematical sciences (those enrolled for master’s degree courses are 85% and 81% respectively). Within these groups, the proportion of those who are able to combine study and work fluctuates around 16%. The rate of those who continue academic study is lower among graduates from chemical science and technology (69%, of whom 10% are holding jobs), and especially from the statistical sciences (where “only” 46% of graduates are pursuing postgraduate study).

Accordingly, the employment rate at one year from graduation, irrespective of whether the graduates continue to study or not, is much higher among graduates from the statistical sciences (59%), than among those from chemical science and technology (29%), mathematical science (also 29%) and physical science and technology (28%). In this case too, the situation is influenced by the variable numbers of regular under-23s graduates investigated by the survey.

Gender differences. The actual choices made by men and women graduates during the current stage of transition in the university reform do not appear to be significantly different in terms of both entry into the job market (where 38% of men and 35% of women graduates are only engaged in employment) and the pursuit of further academic study through a postgraduate qualification (where of those only pursuing postgraduate studies 37% are men and 35% are women). Rather than being determined by gender, these choices are based on specific individual predispositions, previous overall employment and training experiences, as well as social and background-related characteristics (first level education first and foremost, but also age at graduation, time taken to complete degree course, degree grade, parents’ academic qualifications, geographical area of residence and work experience during degree studies). In this respect, the only significant difference between men and women relates to the proportion of those searching for a job, which despite being relatively low in itself, concerns 4% of men as against 7% of women graduates.

As mentioned earlier, over 54% (54.4)²¹ of first level graduates continue to study and are enrolled on a postgraduate degree course. Of these, 36.1% only pursue academic study and as many as 18.3% try to combine work and study. For a further 41% of the graduates the first level degree brought their university education to completion²².

Over 90% of the regular under-23s graduates choose to go on to university postgraduate studies. Of these, 72% are only involved in study, while a further 19% are working and studying at the same time.

The differences between men and women graduates have already been addressed above (see section 2.1- Graduates who work and graduates who pursue further studies ). All we need to mention here is that, overall, 55.2% of all men graduates are enrolled for further study as opposed to 53.7% women graduates.

Previous degree course. The pursuit of further study is strongly impacted by the previous degree course taken by the graduates. This factor appears to exercise a strong influence on psychology graduates (over 86%), geo-biology graduates (83%), and graduates from the law and engineering group (69%). The factor reaches minimum levels at slightly above 32%, for graduates with a teaching degree (32.2%), with a chemistry-pharmacy degree (36.3%) and a language degree (42.9%). The absolute minimum level (8.7%) is found among graduates with degree courses related to the healthcare-related professions within the medical group (nursing, obstetrics, rehabilitation and prevention). This probably reflects a situation of transition where, at this initial stage of implementation of the university system reform, we are dealing mainly with individuals who have obtained a first level qualification while already holding a previous university diploma and are frequently continuing in the jobs they already held.

Reasons for pursuing postgraduate education. 72% of the interviewed graduates enrolled on postgraduate degree courses made this choice prompted by a desire to complete and enrich their education and training, while nearly a quarter (24.7%) felt this was almost a “forced choice” in order to have access to employment. The trend is confirmed across all the groups, although the desire to improve their training was found to be particularly strong among the groups of medical graduates (82%), science graduates (79.7%) and engineering graduates (78.5%). More graduates in law and letters – though still mainly prompted by a desire to enrich their education and training (50% and 63% respectively) – considered that enrolling on a postgraduate degree is a requirement for accessing the job market than did the graduates from other degree courses (47% and 33% respectively, compared to an average value of 25%).

Consistency with previous studies. Over three quarters of the graduates (77%) chose to enrol on postgraduate courses which they considered to be a “natural” follow-up to their first level qualifications. A further 18% enrolled on a course belonging to the same disciplinary field even though they felt this choice did not represent a “natural” follow-up to their first level degree, while the rest of the graduates chose a different disciplinary field. The graduates from the science and psychology group show a high degree of consistency in the choices made (over 86% continued their university career with courses that were strictly linked to the first level degree courses they had completed). The teaching group, on the other hand, show highly diversified choices. Only 58% chose a course consistent with their first level degree courses, one third chose courses that were not strictly related (but still belonged to the same disciplinary field) and 9% of these graduates enrolled on a postgraduate course in a different disciplinary field from that of the their newly-completed degree.

Satisfactory assessments of postgraduate courses by those who chose to pursue them. The opinion expressed by graduates on the contents and usefulness of the subjects studied in their postgraduate degree courses is high, with an average score of 7.2 on a scale of 1 to 10, ranging from minimum scores of between 6.3 and 6.5 for physical education and teaching groups respectively, to the other end of the scale with scores of 7.3 and 7.4 for geo-biology, economics-statistics and engineering groups²³.

Beyond the first level degree: reasons for choosing not to pursue postgraduate education. As pointed out earlier, for 41% of the first level graduates, their university career was brought to completion by their first degree. Of these, over 80% were found to have jobs as early at one year from graduation, frequently continuing in the jobs they had started before completing their degree. Only 8% of the graduates stated that they were not interested in continuing their education through postgraduate study.

For just under half the graduates (45%), the reason for not pursuing postgraduate education, irrespective of the university courses they had completed, is attributable to the difficulties of combining work with study. This is particularly true of graduates from the economics-statistics, engineering and science groups (over 50% of graduates), and to a lesser extent (25%), for language graduates. In fact, for 29% of the language graduates, the reason for not pursuing postgraduate study was due to a lack of available courses in the subject area that interested them or the fact that their chosen courses were not eventually held, while a further 16% turned to other postgraduate training activities.

These reasons, albeit to a less significant extent, also apply to the overall group of graduates, whose career choice after graduating were affected by the lack of courses available in the disciplinary area they were interested in or the fact that their chosen courses were not eventually held (14.6%), by financial reasons (9.1%) and by their interest in furthering their training through other postgraduate activities (also 9.1%).

We previously saw the key aspects that characterise first level graduates in employment, whether the work was supplemented by further study or otherwise (see section 2.1- Graduates who work and Graduates who pursue further studies). We are now going to examine in more depth the characteristics of those working activities themselves.

At one year from graduation, almost half of all the first level graduates (48%) enjoy job security, owing particularly to the increase in permanent employment contracts which account for almost 40% of the graduates with jobs. An identical proportion is accounted for by graduates in flexible employment, where one fifth of employed graduates have contract work while 17% have a fixed-term contract.

At one year from graduation, first level graduates from the medical and the economics-statistics groups appear to enjoy the highest levels of job security. This is due to the high number of graduates who continue in the job they held before receiving their degree (equal to 78.4% and 55.7% respectively, as against an average of very nearly 49% for all the first level graduates). The graduates working in the healthcare-related professions, however, were found to enjoy a higher than average level of security even for those who started working after receiving their qualification (63% as against 28%).

Gender differences. Significantly more men graduates enjoy job security than their women counterparts (57% of employed men as opposed to 40% of employed women). The difference however, is almost entirely due to the different gender component in the figures for temporary employment (differently, as will be seen later, from the findings relating to pre-reform graduates). While 10% of working men and 7% of working women are self-employed, 47% of working men and approximately 33% of working women are in permanent employment. The figures for those with apprenticeship or trainee employment contracts, on the other hand, are 4.9% for women and 3.6% for men. As far as flexible employment is concerned, this involves over 45% of women and a third of men graduates. This gap is due specifically to differences in the figures for men and women with temporary contracts, which are 25% for women and 12% for men. Gender differences however, are less significant where contract work is concerned (22% for women and 19% for men).

The above situation however results from the different behaviour of those who are just working and those who have a job and are studying for a postgraduate qualification at the same time. Job security is much more significant among the first group (59%) than for working students (32.7%), thanks to the greater availability of permanent employment contracts (47.4% for employed graduates who are not pursuing further study and 24.6% of working students).

Flexible contracts, by contrast, mostly concern working students (over 47% of graduates) compared to a little over a third of those who just work. This is almost entirely due to the different spread of contract work which involves almost 30% of those who work and study as opposed to just 16% of those who only work.

At one year from obtaining their qualification, the net monthly earnings of first level graduates is 1,042 Euro, with significant differences existing between those who continue in their previous jobs (1,168 Euro) and those who started working after completing their first level degree (907 Euro).

In addition to reducing the level of job security, further training through postgraduate study also leads to lower monthly earnings for those who make this choice than for graduates who only work (821 as against 1,1153 Euro respectively). This finding was seen to apply to all degree subject groups.

Differences in earnings were also found to exist between the various degree subject groups, irrespective of whether postgraduate training was pursued or not. Graduates from the medical and economics-statistics groups in particular were found to be in the higher income brackets (1,277 and 1,224 Euro respectively), although as previously pointed out, this is due mainly to the high proportion of graduates in these fields who continue in their previous jobs after graduating. Graduates in the medical group however, were found to have higher monthly earnings than those for the whole graduate cohort even among those who started working after graduating (1,285 as against 907 Euro).

Significantly lower earnings were found among graduates from the subject areas of letters, teaching and languages, where average incomes are in fact under 900 Euro per month. In the first two groups, this is also due to a higher presence of graduates who work and study at the same time.

Women were also found to have a disadvantage in relation to their male counterparts in terms of financial conditions, with net monthly earnings of 898 as against 1,211 Euro. This difference is all the more significant if we consider that it applies equally to those who only work (1,322 Euro for men and 1,004 for women) and to those who both work and study (979 Euro as against 692 respectively). Gender differences are confirmed across all the subject groups, particularly economics-statistics, where men earn 60% more than their female counterparts (1,418 Euro as against 888 Euro for women), partly because it is more common for them to continue in the jobs they had started before their degrees.

The term effectiveness of the acquired degree brings together the two key aspects of usefulness and spendability of a university qualification on the labour market. This indicator is the result of combining answers to questions regarding the formal and substantive need for the acquired qualification in order to carry out the graduate’s current job and the extent to which the university-acquired skills are being used in practice²⁵ . Already at one year, overall effectiveness was seen to be good. It was at least fairly effective in the view of 78% of the graduate cohort, particularly for those from the medical (98%), teaching (89.7%) and science (81.4%) groups.

As might be expected, the level of effectiveness of the acquired degree proved to be better for graduates who are only working than for those who are both working and studying. In fact, for the former, the degree is regarded as being at least fairly effective by 83% of the graduates, which is 17 percentage points more than the figure for those who are also pursuing postgraduate study.

There are no significant differences connected to whether graduates are continuing in the jobs they had prior to graduation or otherwise. The degree was found to be more effective for men than for their women counterparts (81.5% and 74.3% respectively) and this was true of all groups where the numbers examined justified such comparisons to be made.

The quality of the employment obtained by graduates was assessed by combining a series of factors. As well as the two components making up the effectiveness index – the extent to which the acquired qualification was necessary and the level of usefulness of the university-acquired skills –, the study also included the nature of the labour contract and the degree of job satisfaction²⁶ . As was the case for pre-reform graduates, assessments of employment quality for first level graduates (with an overall value of 69 on a scale of 0-100) depended on the graduates’ degree subjects. Graduates from the medical and teaching groups consider themselves to be performing high quality work (85% and 73% respectively), while at the other end of the scale, graduates from the geo-biology, letters and psychology groupings give more modest quality scores, fluctuating between 46 and 54 out of 100.

Obviously, continuing training through postgraduate study lowers considerably the quality of the work being performed at the same time. In their assessments, newly qualified graduates who are only engaged in employment activities appreciate the quality of their work much more than those who are studying and working at the same time (73% as against 62%). The difference is especially marked in the group of engineering graduates (73% and 58% respectively).

The findings showed no gender-based differences in employment quality.

Our interest in ascertaining the varying levels of appreciation shown by the labour market for graduates from the old and the new system and in evaluating the main aspects that characterise their entry into that market should not obscure the fact that the comparison is between two different populations of graduates. The differences between these graduates are related, on the one hand, to their goals, their educational and training backgrounds and the duration of their academic studies, and on the other, to the existing knowledge about the qualifications themselves and the spendability of the latter in terms of employment. The feedback from the labour market made possible by AlmaLaurea’s activities confirms that those who are involved in the world of employment suffer from widespread disorientation and poor knowledge of even just the formal aspects of the qualifications introduced by the Reform. Furthermore, for a reliable analysis we need to ensure that there are no possible “disturbing” factors, particularly regarding differences in the numbers of graduates who are continuing to perform the jobs they had before obtaining their degrees. This concern is not just a theoretical matter if we consider that at the current stage of transition between the old and the new system – already outlined on various occasions –, almost half (49%) of the first level graduates who qualified in 2004 and employed at one year from graduation are continuing the jobs they had started before taking their degree. By contrast, for those who graduated under the old system in the same year, this phenomenon, albeit still significant, applies to only 27% of the working graduates. For these reasons, rigorous in-depth studies designed to monitor the response of the job market should only consider sample groups of graduates who started working once they received their degrees, and single out further sample groups of graduates who are only engaged in working activities, while excluding those who are both working and studying. These cohorts are not always easy to identify and there is a substantial difference in numbers between graduates from the old system and first level graduates.

If the rate of employment, which as we saw earlier is effectively identical for the two surveyed populations taken as a whole (approximately 54%), were recalculated to include only those graduates who were not in employment at the time of graduation, the percentages would be 44% for pre-reform graduates and 33% for their first level counterparts. Similarly, the proportion of those who stated that they were job searching is 31% and 18% respectively. The explanation for this difference obviously lies in the different proportion of students pursuing further studies, which is significantly higher among the first level graduates who were not working at the time of graduation (55% of whom are enrolled for postgraduate study).
The difficulties and reasons for caution outlined earlier and the associated interpretive limitations are consistently confirmed by the results of the investigation of the entire population of graduates who were not working at the time of graduation, without distinguishing between those who only work and those who both work and study. In fact, for those who are only working, factors of job security, earnings and employment quality were obviously found to be better. This is probably due to the same reasons underpinning the better results found among pre-reform graduates in terms of security, earnings and employment quality, in comparison with those of their first level graduate counterparts.

Compared to previous years, the main indicators used to analyse the employment outcomes of graduates – after applying a necessary reproportioning procedure that gives a better definition of the initial results sent to the Rectors of the AlmaLaurea member universities – seem to suggest that the most critical period in graduate employment recorded in recent years is gradually dying out. The signs for graduate employment and unemployment, whether positive or negative, do not actually appear to be entirely linked to the adoption of different definitions. What seems to be the unmistakable trend in all cases is the progressive increase in the proportion of graduates pursuing some form of postgraduate training after their first degree.

Using the same definition, employment for graduates at three years from graduation increased by almost 1 percentage point in the last survey, from 72.9% for the class of 2001 graduates to 73.8% for the class of 2002 graduates. At five years from graduation, employment remains largely stable (86.4% for the class of 1999 graduates and 86.3% for the class of 2000 graduates).

If we adopt the ISTAT definition used in the Survey of the Labour Force (which also includes graduates pursuing remunerated training among those in work) instead, the rate of graduate employment both at one year and at five years from graduation appears to have been largely stable in recent years. This stability is entirely due to the growing proportion of graduates that pursue remunerated postgraduate training.

Another important element which deserves further consideration comes from analysing the unemployment rate (calculated according to the definition of the “unemployed person” adopted by ISTAT Survey of the Labour Force²⁷) . Over the period of this past year, the rate of unemployment was found to have decreased both at one year and at three years from graduation (-1.5 percentage points for both) and was largely stable at five years. What seems certain is that this fall does not depend on the variation in the size of the graduate labour force at one year from graduation, which shows a decrease of 1.3 percentage points compared to the previous investigation (a worrying sign in the light of the goals set by the Lisbon Strategy in 2000!) ²⁸.

In this case, too, it would seem that the reason for the decrease in size of the graduate labour force is to be found at least partly in the proportion of graduates who pursue postgraduate studies even though they receive no specific form of remuneration.

Employment trends according to the different universities. A comprehensive analysis has to take into consideration the different dynamic potential of regional markets and the make up of the graduate population on the basis of both university and area of residence. In employment terms, the overall result of the individual universities is a function of their different composition by departments, the different relative weight of each of these departments and the different employment dynamic of the individual degree course. The overall fall in employment at one year from graduation, while less significant compared to last year, was found to apply to 13 of the 27 universities that were also surveyed last year and in 8 of these the fall is actually above 2 percentage points. Parallel considerations apply to the universities that are showing signs of recovery, 14 in all, but including 8 for which the rise in employment rate exceeds 2 percentage points. This recovery, albeit weak in some cases, concerns equally universities in northern and southern Italy (some signs of recovery were seen in 5 out of the 9 universities investigated in the south). It nevertheless remains true that for the majority of the universities in the south the employment rate found was fairly low ²⁹

27% of all graduates continue in the employment they had before obtaining their degree. Similarly to last year, of the graduates that were found to be employed at one year from graduation, 27% are actually continuing in the job they had started before graduating ³⁰ . This is particularly common among graduates in law (46%), psychology (44%), letters (40%), teaching (39%) and the political and social sciences (32%). These are mostly older students, especially public sector employees for whom a degree is not only a means of improving their professional skills but also opens the door to career advancement and job enhancement (this enhancement was in fact found to apply to 38% of the group investigated by the survey) ³¹.

Employment trends per degree course grouping. Employment varies widely at one year from graduation depending on the subject area. If exception is made for subjects like medicine, law and science where entry into the labour market is delayed by the further training required in order to exercise a profession, the highest employment rate was observed among engineering graduates (76%, i.e. largely stable compared to last year’s survey). Difficulties with finding employment have slightly increased for a considerable number of course groupings as compared to last year, where the most significant fall (2 percentage points) was found among graduates in chemistry-pharmacology. On the other hand, some signs of recovery were seen across four degree course groupings, including teaching (+4%, psychology (+1.8%), letters (1%) and languages (+0.9%).

Employment according to the definition given in the ISTAT Labour Force survey. Like the ISTAT (Italian Statistics Board) survey of graduate employment, the AlmaLaurea survey does not consider as employed those graduates engaged in postgraduate training, even if paid, (e.g. trainees, postgraduates and PhD students). These groups are, however, considered as employed according to the definition used by ISTAT for its Labour Force surveys ³² . According to this less restrictive definition of “employed person”, the employment rate increases by more than 15 percentage points (68.6% as opposed to 53.7%).

By adopting the less restrictive definition, particularly when analysing situations with a high proportion of graduates pursuing further study, employment appears to have remained largely stable in the last three years under investigation (68.5% and 68.6% for the classes of 2003 and 2002 graduates respectively). Under this definition, employment among newly qualified doctors increases by over 51 percentage points, from 31% to 82%. The increase for science graduates is of almost 24 percentage points and for geo-biology graduates of over 23 points. This less restrictive definition of employment also increases the figure for law graduates from 25% to 47%.

In recent years the fall in employment was accompanied by a parallel increase in the number of graduates seeking employment although, for the first time in the last three years, the increase this year was rather modest. It went up from 20.1% for the class of 2001 graduates, to 24% for the class of 2002 graduates, to 25.8% for those graduating in 2003 and to 26% for the latest class of graduates.

The real size of unemployment. The number of people in search of employment does not, however, exactly match the number of unemployed which, as defined by ISTAT’s Labour Force study are those who, among other things, have actively sought employment at least once during the four weeks prior to the interview and are willing to start work in the two subsequent weeks³³.

Thus defined, the unemployment rate at one year is 17.3% among the class of 2004 graduates, representing a fall for the first time after the uninterrupted growth of the previous years (-1.5 percentage points as compared to the figure for the class of 2003 graduates).

The same trend was found in the employment figures at three years from graduation, where the unemployment figure for the class of 2002 graduates is 7.4% (as against 8.9% for the class of 2001 graduates).

Analyses of the growth trends carried out on the class of 2000 graduates showed how the unemployment rate at one year from graduation has smoothed out to a more “physiological” rate, going from 15.4% at one year to 4.3% at five years from graduation (in line with the figure recorded for the previous class of graduates during the same time interval).

At one year from graduation, the number of graduates who continue their education was found to be increasing, albeit not significantly (almost unchanged compared to two years ago). Postgraduate training however remained a frequent option, involving 68% of graduates overall, with 54% being employed graduates and as many as 85% being graduates not in employment, and different figures found for different postgraduate courses.

The main features of the demand for postgraduate training include traineeships required to enrol on professional registers (29.5%), language or IT courses (20.8%), in-house company training (17.2%), and unpaid voluntary collaboration with university academics or professionals (15.6%).

While delayed entry into the labour market was found to be affecting the class of 2004 pre-reform graduates examined by the survey at one year from graduation, at three years from graduation the situation showed some sign of improvement, with an increase from last year’s survey from 72.9 to 73.8%. Furthermore, employment for the class of 2002 graduates has grown by 19 percentage points since they were interviewed one year after graduation.

A comparison with the only national survey available shows that the employment rate found by ISTAT in 2004 (on a sample of class of 2001 graduates) was 1 percentage point lower as compared to the figure found in the AlmaLaurea survey for the same year and virtually the same as that of the latest AlmaLaurea finding ³⁴.

If graduates from departments leading to extensive postgraduate specialisation are excluded from the study, all the other subject areas show decidedly higher than average employment rates (and generally increasing compared to last year), and some departments (architecture and engineering especially) have shown close to full employment rates.

Employment at three years from graduation, based on the ISTAT definition in the Labour Force survey, stood at 84%. Here too, as already mentioned for employment figures of graduates at one year, the definition of “employed person” (bearing in mind the additional considerations mentioned for the employment figures at one year from graduation) is of considerable relevance. If those engaged in paid training activities are included among the employed, employment rates rise by a further 10 percentage points to an overall 83.6% (one percentage more compared to the findings for last year). This boosts the employment rates especially among the degree course subject areas that lead to postgraduate specialisation, namely, medical studies (where employment rose from 37.7% to 95.6%), geo-biological studies (from 65.6% to 87.1%) and the sciences (from 64.9% to 85.9%). With an increase of 4 percentage points if further training is considered, law graduates at 60.3% still remain the group with the lowest employment rate. Many factors may account for this, no doubt including the fact that graduates may have just completed a trainee practice or apprenticeship period.

Employment for all graduates was found to have grown to 86% at five years from graduation. This represents an increase of nearly 29 percentage points compared to employment rates at one year from qualification for the same cohort. This increase varies among the different graduate groups, with law graduates enjoying the highest rise (57 percentage points, increasing from 26 to 83%), followed by medical graduates (over 39 percentage points more, from 23 to 62%), and psychology graduates (+28 percentage points, from 62 to 91%).

We may talk of full employment at five years in the case of graduates in engineering (96.6%), architecture (94.2%), psychology (90.7%) and political and social sciences (90.3%). The proportion of medical graduates continuing their training still remains quite high at 26%. Compared to the previous survey, employment is decidedly growing for medical (+7.1 percentage points) and agriculture graduates (+4.7 percentage points), while it is slightly falling for the law and science groups (-2.9 and –2.2 percentage points respectively).

Extending the survey to five years after graduation. For some years now, the empirical data emerging from the previous AlmaLaurea surveys has been suggesting that the survey should be extended beyond 3 years from the year of graduation. Limiting a survey to the three years following graduation in fact tends to accentuate the similarities rather than the differences among the approaches to employment of various graduate groups. Extending the time interval of the survey allows an assessment of the real extent of the value added by postgraduate training in helping graduates to get the most sought after jobs, and the ones for which there is the highest demand by the country’s leading economic sectors. It also provides a clearer picture of the external effectiveness of the various degree courses³⁵.

Extending the survey to five years has allowed us to continue to explore two worlds that hitherto had been largely unknown quantities: the world of the law graduate, where employment for the class of 2000 went up from 56.1% to 83.4% from the 3rd to the 5th year after graduation, and the medical group, where employment over the same period rose from 32 to 62.3%. As mentioned earlier, at five years from graduation, the percentage of medical graduates continuing their specialisation remains high at 26.2%. This is due especially to the lengthy course duration of the specialisation schools but also to the time it takes to be admitted to such schools. When the Labour Force definition of employment is adopted, overall graduate employment at five years rises from 86% to 90%, with the rate for medical graduates reaching 95% (+33 percentage points).

Already at one year from graduation, the employment rates among men and women show significant differences (8 percentage points with 50% of women graduates having found employment as compared to 58% of men). This difference has tended to increase since the first two classes of graduates were investigated (in the 1999 class of graduates, the difference was already of 2.7 percentage points at one year from graduation and 5.1 points for the 2000 class). This confirms that during periods of growth in employment the gender differential tends to narrow and that at the first signs of any employment difficulties it is women who bear the brunt. However, gender differences in the last four years have decreased, albeit slightly, by 0.8 percentage points. From an employment viewpoint, gender differences become more marked in the medium to long term. Looking at the class of 2000 graduates, the gap in the employment rate between men and women was found to have grown to 7.4 percentage points at three years from graduation and nearly 8 percentage points at five years.

The advantage of male graduates is seen almost across the board in terms of degree courses and in every generation considered. At five years from graduation, men enjoy higher employment rates in all disciplines except psychology, languages and the sciences.

The situation in Italy is similar to many other European labour markets, especially France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Hungary. Women are frequently the most disadvantaged group compared to their male colleagues, finding work later and with minimal numbers holding high-level jobs in the private and public sector.

Women earn less than their male counterparts even when they hold the same professional position and qualifications³⁶.

Differences in employment between northern and southern Italy ³⁷ have remained largely unchanged in recent years, apparently not benefiting even from periods of economic growth. At one year from graduation, this divide is still in excess of 21 percentage points. Among the class of 2004 graduates, as with the previous class of graduates, 65% of those employed reside in the north while 41% live in the south, and the gap is widening (24 percentage points).

As a result, regional differences among those searching for employment are very high. This situation has tended to remain unchanged over the years and continues to affect more than one third of all the class of 2004 graduates residing in the south, and only 16 out of one hundred graduates living in the north.

Several in-depth studies of graduates at both one and five years from graduation debunk a number of common beliefs and confirm that a willingness to move for reasons of work is rewarding in terms of employment opportunities.

To start with, it is interesting to note that the percentage of graduates who stated, just before completing their degree, that they were unwilling to move for reasons of work was very low indeed (the percentage fluctuating around the 3% mark for both the classes of 2004 and 2000 graduates), and consists mostly of women, of graduates from the teaching group and those living in the north. By contrast, for the class of 2004 graduates, more than 6 out of 10 graduates were willing to move, even frequently, (5 out of 10 for the class of 2000 graduates), while the rest were graduates who stated they were willing to move for reasons of work provided this happened a limited number of times.

A willingness to move – possibly synonymous with being more enterprising – was found to be positively correlated with employment rates at both one and five years from graduation. Discounting graduates already in jobs at the time of graduation, 46 graduates out of a hundred willing to move were employed at one year from graduation as opposed to only 36% of those unwilling to move. At five years from graduation these percentages grow to 86% and 72% respectively, further increasing the gap between the two groups (from 10 to 14 percentage points).

Moreover, the link found between willingness to move and employment is not affected by the sample make up according to degree course groupings and is therefore confirmed as valid, to a greater or lesser extent, for the majority of degree courses, particularly at five years from graduation.

Methods of entry. The survey enabled us to examine how six successive classes of graduates in the period 1999-2004 entered the labour market ³⁸.

An in-depth study was carried out on the successful action taken (in the first year after completing their degree) by those graduates who had taken up their current job after receiving their degrees.

Personal initiative proved the most widespread job-seeking method and was adopted by 34% of all the class of 2004 graduates (as many as 41% of graduates in chemistry-pharmacology and “only” 28% in political and social sciences).

There is widespread recourse to the personal involvement of family and friends as a means of opening employment opportunities. This enabled 13% of newly qualified graduates to find a job (this route was found to be particularly profitable to 20% of psychology graduates, less so for chemistry-pharmacology graduates at 9%). In comparison to previous surveys, unfortunately, there was a marked increase in requests for graduates’ names to be put forward to employers which, compared to the previous “entry route” examined, implies a passive role by the graduate. This year, 6% of the newly qualified graduates resorted to this method which amounts to almost double the number for five years ago ³⁹.

In the period under observation, in-house company training (both before and after graduation) played an increasingly important role, increasing from 6.2% to 11% during the period of observation. With the exception, for obvious reasons, of psychology graduates, company training is currently much more widespread among political and social science graduates (15%).

In the period under observation, graduates were less likely to have been contacted directly by a company or to have answered a job advertisement, with 8 and 6 graduates out of one hundred respectively finding employment in this way, compared to 10 and 8 for the 1999 cohort.

Temporary job agencies and self-employment on the other hand were seen to be gaining in importance, even if only very relatively in terms of overall figures. These two routes to employment are currently adopted by 4 graduates out of one hundred (against 3% in the 1999 group).

Entering public competitions is understandably not very feasible during the first 12 months after graduation. This, together with the few public employment opportunities now on offer, has led to a fall in this method of seeking employment between 1999 and 2004 from 4.5% to 3.5%.

At five years from graduation, by contrast, securing a job through public competition has become increasingly important, to include some 10% of all graduates. This route was followed particularly by graduates from certain degree course areas (teaching, medicine, letters and sciences) and consequently, by more women than men (11% as against 8%). At five years from graduation a significant number of graduates are self-employed. This involves 12% of graduates, i.e. four times as many as those at one year from graduation. At five years, personal initiative still remained the method most commonly resorted to and proved successful for 28% of employed graduates.

Five years on from graduation, regional differences in job-seeking methods have grown. In particular, the greater economic difficulties affecting southern Italy have led many graduates to opt for self-employment (20.9% in the south as against 8% in the north, both showing a fall compared to the figures in last year’s survey).

Time taken to enter the labour market. The time taken to enter the labour market ⁴⁰ was investigated for the group of graduates at five years from graduation, and only took into account those who were not employed at the time of obtaining their degree. For this purpose, the survey adopted the Cox model, which is specifically designed to estimate the curves for entry into the labour market while taking into account the effect of a set of explicative variables ⁴¹. . The model proved that several factors affect the time taken to enter the labour market, including military service duties, degree course, area of residence, work experience during undergraduate career, and type of work sought at graduation (public/private) ⁴².

At the time of graduation, those men who have not yet done their compulsory military service are temporarily excluded from the labour market. This group in fact took an average of 9 months to find employment. If the effect of military service is discounted, it can be seen that men and women enter the labour market in very similar ways, a fact that is further confirmed by the related time taken to do so (6 months for both).

The relative time curves for entering the labour market for the various degree courses make interesting reading. Graduates from medicine, law and geo-biological sciences show much higher than average entry curves (due to longer time-to-entry) on account of their postgraduate training requirements (postgraduate specialisation, traineeships, etc.). The former do not enter the labour market before one and a half years after their degree, but will do so within the first month from when they start their job search. The latter will have to wait “only” a year. At the top end of the scale, architects become very rapidly absorbed in the labour market, as are engineers, language graduates and teachers, with survival curves that swiftly reach full employment.

The greatest difficulties in entering the labour market were experienced by graduates living in southern Italy and the islands, as clearly shown by the relevant entry curve, which remained significantly above that of residents in northern and central Italy. Graduates in northern Italy took 5 months to enter the market while they took 6 months in central Italy and 9 months in the south and the islands.

Less marked but nonetheless significant – and probably related to the different strategies used to access the labour market – were the differences linked to the work experience gained by graduates during their degree studies. Graduates who have gained such experience tend to enter the job market more swiftly than those who have not, although the average times of entry were not significantly different.

In this eighth edition of the AlmaLaurea survey, once again, only some of the graduates interviewed – mainly those entering the labour market for the first time – were affected by the new provisions introduced by the so-called Biagi Reform ⁴³ . While the reform has been in force since October 2003, implementation has taken some time, with a particularly lengthy and complex transition period in which the difficulties of adopting the new, still incompletely defined, measures were compounded by the fact that the old contractual provisions, being no longer valid, could not provide a reference framework.

The data at one year from graduation would seem to confirm the complexity of this transition, and offer some ideas for interpretation. In fact, in recent years, the usual see-saw effect between permanent versus flexible or temporary employment ⁴⁴ , with one rising when the other falls and vice versa, suddenly disappeared from the 2004 survey and then reappeared again in the 2005 survey.

Permanent employment in fact increased from 40.8% during the first year of investigation (2000 survey), to a peak of 45.7% the following year, falling again in the two subsequent surveys, fluctuating in this case around the 40% mark. Within the area of permanent employment, self-employment was found to be virtually unvaried during the period under consideration (approximately at 12%), while permanent contracts are falling again after the significant recovery experienced last year (increasing from 29% for the class of 1999 graduates, to 34% for the class of 2000 graduates, to 26% for the class of 2002 graduates, to 29% and 27% for the two subsequent classes of graduates).

Flexible employment has grown by over 10% in the six surveys considered. It was 38.3% for the class of 1999 graduates, then fell to its lowest point the following year at 37.4% and subsequently rose to 48.5% for the class of 2004 graduates. Within the area of flexible employment, contract jobs have increased slightly between the classes of 1999 and 2004 graduates (from 23% for the class of 1999 graduates to 25% for the class of 2004 graduates, albeit with a 2 percentage point fall) in the first year. Fixed-term employment contracts have grown even more significantly, increasing from 12% to 21%). The percentage of trainee employment and apprenticeship contracts has fallen significantly (from 14.8% to 4.8%) between the classes of 1999 and 2004 graduates (with a particularly severe reduction in the last two years). This fall is undoubtedly due to the fact that trainee contracts (introduced by the Biagi reform and replacing apprenticeship contracts) could not be used until summer 2004, but probably also as a result of recent changes in the tax laws that apply to this type of contract ⁴⁵.

Finally, the constant increase in jobs without a formal labour contract is a particularly worrying trend that has been especially pronounced this last year. These types of jobs have increased from 3.7% to 5.5% to 7.1% for the 2000, 2003 and 2004 classes of graduates respectively ⁴⁶ . The trend is particularly alarming since it applies to highly qualified graduates and gives food for thought about the effectiveness of policies designed to move away from irregular employment.

It is difficult to establish how far the graduate employment situation is due to changed conditions within the employment market or to the effects of the labour market reform, not least because for the whole of 2004, the Biagi reform seemed to have a limited influence as it allowed for an experimentation period of 18 months ending in summer 2005⁴⁷.

Gender differences. Job security was enjoyed by a considerably larger number of men (44.8% of those with jobs, i.e. nearly 4 percentage points less compared to last year’s survey) than their female counterparts (34.5%, i.e. 1 percentage point less compared to the 2004 survey). This difference however, is almost entirely attributable to the different levels of self-employment in the male and female groups. While approximately 28% of men and 26% of women have found regular permanent employment, 16% of these men and almost 8% of the women are in self-employment. The situation is practically the same for trainee and apprenticeship contracts (6% for men and 4% for women) ⁴⁸ . The flexible employment patchwork involves more than half of all women in employment and 44% of men.

73% of the class of 2000 graduates interviewed in this longitudinal survey at five years from graduation were found to be in permanent employment, representing a fall of one percentage point compared to last year’s survey and 27% more than when interviewed one year after graduation ⁴⁹ . This great leap forward is due especially to the increase in permanent employment (up by 15 percentage points) to 49% of all employed graduates at five years. Self-employment grew from 12 to 24%, an increase of 12 percentage points. During this five year period, a parallel fall was observed in flexible forms of employment (from 37.4% to 24.9%), in trainee contracts (in compliance with the Biagi Act), which are disappearing in practice, falling from 12% to1%, and employment without a formal labour contract (from 4% down to 1%). Compared to the 2004 survey, flexible employment at five years from graduation has increased by over 1 percentage point.

At five years from graduation, the male-female divide in terms of permanent employment was even bigger at around 13 percentage points, although once again this was almost entirely attributable to self-employment that is more widespread among men.

At five years after qualifying, engineering, chemistry-pharmacology, law and economics-statistics graduates showed the highest levels of permanent employment (nearly or over the 80% threshold of those in employment). Permanent employment on the other hand is still much less widespread among graduates in letters, medical sciences, geo-biology, teaching and languages, for whom the rate is less than 60% of employed graduates.

From temporary jobs to job security. The growth trend in the number of graduates obtaining permanent employment in the period between the 1st to the 5th year following graduation makes interesting reading. The following is an overview of the main trends observed.

86% of the 2000 graduate cohort who at one year after graduation had already found a permanent job, continued to be regularly employed.

Flexible work contracts – even at five years from graduation – still account for 33% of those who already had this kind of contract at one year from graduation while 56% had had their jobs converted to permanent employment contracts. However, at five years, 10 graduates out of a hundred had moved from a flexible job to unemployment.

The trainee and apprenticeship contracts had practically all been turned into full-time permanent job contracts (in 87% of cases) while 9% had been converted into flexible employment.

A little less than half (47.3%, representing a fall from the 2004 survey) of those who at one year from graduation were still not working had found a permanent job in the subsequent five-year period. However, 27% of the graduates who entered the labour market with flexible or temporary employment continued to be in this situation while 23% were still not working even after five years (a high proportion of them are actively seeking a job, particularly lawyers and doctors).

Some of those who, one year after graduation, had stated that they were working without a labour contract, had also found permanent employment during the subsequent five-year period, while others were engaged in flexible employment (53% and 28% respectively)⁵⁰.

Geographical differences. Both at one and five years from graduation, self-employment was found to be more widespread in the south, possibly in response to the well-known difficult employment situation there. At one year from graduation, 10% of graduates working in the north and 17% of those working in the south were self-employed (3 percentage points more compared to the previous year’s survey). At five years from graduation, these figures have grown further to around 20 and 33% respectively. For this very reason, at five years from graduation the geographical differences in terms of permanent employment rates are less than might be expected, where 75% of the graduates with a job in the north were in permanent employment as against 71% of their counterparts in the south (the figures for the previous year were 76% and 70% respectively. Flexible employment also levels out between north and south (23% and 26% respectively).

Obviously the employment data at one year from graduation must be interpreted with some caution, especially since 27% of employed graduates were continuing in jobs started before their degree. Extending the analysis to longer time periods is all the more necessary in light of the fact that the years immediately following graduation are marked not only by the difficulties experienced by new graduates in entering the labour market but increasingly by young graduates “trying out” jobs, often with very little or no previous experience.

At one year from graduation, 30% of those with employment hold high to medium skilled jobs (5 percentage points less compared to the figure for last year’s survey), a further 8% are executive employees (according to ISTAT definitions), while teachers (not including university teachers) make up 8.4% of the whole group, a rise of approximately 1% from the figure for the class of 2003 graduates (2 percentage points more than for the class of 2002 graduates). The above positions, together with the executive/managerial jobs (which account for 3.6% of employed graduates, equal to a 1% rise compared to the 2004 survey) and other, less frequent positions, account for the bulk of subordinate employment with 55% of all those with jobs. This represents a fall from last year’s surveyed figure of 57.4%.
Looking at self-employment, graduates in the liberal professions account for 5.7% of those with jobs, where 4.4% have their own business and 1.3% are entrepreneurs (all the figures are the same as last year). As a whole, 12.5% of graduates have found some form of self-employment, an almost unchanged percentage from those found in the surveys of the previous two years.

Alongside these two well defined employment categories, flexible employment absorbed approximately 25% of all those with jobs.

Already after just one year from graduation, men occupy higher-level jobs than women. There were more men in the liberal professions (8.4% as against 3.6% of women), in self-employment (5.3% as against 3.7% of women), and in executive/managerial positions (5.2% compared to 2.4%). By the same token, there are more women contract workers (26.4% as against 23.2% of the men), teachers (13.2 as against 2.4%), executive employees (9.8% as against 6.4%) and workers without any formal labour contract (8.6% as against 5.1%).

The figures for self employment increased significantly over the five year period to absorb more than 24% of all those in employment. This is due almost exclusively to the increase in postgraduates exercising the liberal professions which rose to just under one fifth of all working graduates (17%, representing a 1 percentage point fall from the previous year’s survey). Contract work fell during the same period to slightly more than 11%.

In the field of subordinate employment, the number of executives/managers increased (from 3% to 11%) over the five-year period, while there was a parallel fall in the number of executive employees (from 12.2% to 5.3%). In the same period the gender bias in favour of men increased further, especially in the executive/managerial and professional groups. The situation of graduates working without a formal labour contract is of special interest, showing a further increase in the over-representation of women.

As mentioned earlier, extending the survey to five years allowed us to get a much clearer picture of how graduates make their transition from university studies to employment. It also showed how, with time, the nature of the graduates’ jobs increasingly aligned with their degree subjects.

The first piece of empirical evidence to emerge was that at five years from graduation, 3 out of 4 graduates worked in the services sector, a little less than one fifth is in industry and only 1.3% worked in agriculture.

Following up on this first breakdown, we examined the economic sectors that at five years absorbed more than 70% of each degree course group.

At five years, there was a narrowing of the number of sectors taking 70% of employed graduates from political and social sciences, geo-biology, and agriculture, with a further narrowing of those from letters, languages and law groups. This finding showed the tendency for graduate employment at five years to show a better fit with the area of university study. This narrowing of economic sector of employment did not concern graduates from chemistry-pharmacology, engineering and teaching groups, whose employment showed a very close fit with their university studies right from the first year (for engineering the fit between qualification obtained and branch of economic activity is confirmed in the analysis by degree course).

By contrast, for graduates in political and social sciences, economics and statistics, geo-biology and agriculture, the range of employment opportunities was much wider right from the first year, and remained this way even at five years after graduation.

The existence of two fundamentally different approaches of university training – specialist and generalist courses – makes it difficult to establish whether, and to what extent, this leads to greater employment opportunities or whether, on the contrary, it forces graduates to accept employment regardless of the economic sector.

At 12 months following graduation, graduates’ average monthly earnings come close to 1,000 Euro ⁵¹ . This was an improvement compared with the previous surveys (average monthly earnings rose from 986 Euro to 997, equal to +1.1%), yet insufficient to counteract the substantial fall in earnings reported between 2002 and 2003 (-4.5%).

The increase recorded this year is in line with the more general trend reported by ISTAT. Earnings in Italy in fact increased by 3.1% in 2005 as compared with 2004, an increase that has not been experienced since 1997 ⁵² . Also according to ISTAT figures, the earnings of highly qualified graduates (degree and postgraduate qualifications) are higher than those of workers without secondary school qualifications. With all other conditions being equal, in fact, graduates earn 23% more than those who only hold an elementary school certificate (as against 14% more than secondary school certificate holders) ⁵³

At three years from graduation, earnings were around 1,151 Euro, which on the whole, is a similar figure to previous surveys (1,167 Euro for the 2002 survey, 1,161 Euro in 2003 and 1,142 in 2004).

Graduates from the class of 2000 saw their earnings increase substantially by approximately 15% between three and five years following their degree (earnings went from 1,161 to 1,333 Euro). At five years from graduation, the class of 2000 graduates earned slightly more than their 1999 counterparts (1,281 Euro).

Similarly to last year’s survey, at five years from graduation, medical and engineering graduates are the highest earners, while at the other end of the scale are teaching, letters and particularly psychology graduates.

Earnings and age at time of graduation. At five years, slightly higher net monthly earnings were found among graduates who had obtained their qualification at a “young” age (under 25). Focussing on those who started to work after receiving their degree, the results show that “young” graduates earn an average of 1,340 Euro, i.e. 2.5% more than those who graduated at a later age (who earn on average 1,307 Euro).

Gender differences. At one year from graduation, men continued to earn more than their female counterparts. The last two surveys showed the difference to be growing and this year was found to amount to 28% (1,136 Euro for men as against 885 for women in the last survey and 1,108 Euro against 883 Euro in 2004).

These differences tended to increase at three years from graduation (to 29%, with the gap widening compared to last year), with men’s earnings standing at 1,315 as against 1,017 Euro for women, and shrinking slightly at five years (1,530 Euro compared to 1,162). Moreover, the increase from last year in net monthly earnings at three and five years is virtually all accounted for by the men in the sample group.

Gender bias was observed across all the degree course areas. The survey of graduates at five years who had found full-time permanent employment only after completing their degrees, showed how men are consistently preferred over women.

At five years from graduation, and with all other conditions being equal, men had an advantage over their female colleagues also in terms of earnings from their professional activity ⁵⁴ . For an identical employment position, women earned less than their male counterparts with figures ranging from 9% less for executive employees to 39% less for graduates in business activities. Gender differences were also seen within the state school teaching system. This difference would seem, however, to be at least partly attributable to the fact that the AlmaLaurea cohort contained a large number of female pre-school and primary school teachers.

Geographical differences. At five years from graduation, the net monthly earnings of graduates (not considering gender differences) working in northern Italy (1,366 Euro) were found to be significantly higher than those in central Italy (1,281 Euro), and especially in southern Italy (1,191 Euro).

Women were found to be earning consistently less than their male colleagues also looking at different branches of work. This was especially true in southern Italy where the difference was around 29% for graduates working in the north, 33% in the south and 45% abroad.

Working abroad. The subject of graduates working abroad, who represent at least 5% of all those in employment at five years from graduation, deserves a separate chapter. This segment of the graduate population was more difficult to contact than their home-based counterparts, particularly in the case of non-Italian citizens attaining a degree at an Italian university. Not considering the different costs of living, at five years from graduation, earnings of graduates working abroad were more than 40% higher than their counterparts based in Italy (1,918 Euro as against 1,333). Although the data must be treated with the utmost caution in view of the small numbers involved, it is interesting to note that among the graduate categories with the highest number of graduates working abroad, economics-statistics graduates were reported to earn 60% more (2,251 Euro compared to a group average of 1,406) and political science graduates 37% more (1,887 Euro compared to an average value of 1,377).

Remuneration in the public and private sectors. Net salaries in the private sector were generally higher than those earned in the public sector. The only exception to this was the figure at one year from graduation (979 Euro compared to 1,062), which, however, was probably caused by the substantial number of graduates working in the public sector who continued the employment they were in prior to their degree. At five years from graduation, net salaries in the private sector were found to be over 8% higher than in the public sector (1,358 Euro as against 1,259), representing a slight increase (1 percentage point) compared to the findings of the 2004 survey.

While the private and public sectors revealed different levels of appreciation of their male employees, with the private sector providing 8% better earnings compared to the public sector (1,549 Euro as against 1,436 respectively), both private and public showed a surprisingly identical bias against women (also observed in the previous surveys), with women never earning more than 1,170 Euro net per month in either sector. This figure was certainly affected by the large number of women in part-time employment. Part-time women graduates were better remunerated in the public sector (824 Euro in the public sector as against 767 in the private sector), while women graduates in full-time employment in the private sector earned slightly more than their public sector counterparts (1,255 Euro in the private sector compared with 1,249 Euro in the public sector). The extent to which different working hours and the different overtime requirement in the two sectors affects the public-private earnings divide has still to be investigated.

Earnings and branch of activity. Like last year, the branches that at five years from graduation offer the best remuneration are the chemical industry (1,663 Euro), the metallurgical and mechanical industry (1,589 Euro), healthcare (1,582 Euro), electronics (1,516 Euro) and banking (1,507 Euro). All showed increases compared to last year’s survey.

Earnings and skills used in branch of activity. As might be expected, graduates working in industry at five years from graduation earn 18% more than those working in the services sector (1,520 Euro as against 1,287 respectively). It is interesting to note however, that the graduates earning the highest salaries in both sectors are those who state they are making extensive use of their university-acquired skills. The highest recognition of the graduates’ professional quality is shown by the services sector where the difference between those who make extensive use of their university-acquired skills and those who make no use of them whatsoever is 21% (with earnings of 1,339 Euro and 1,103 respectively), while the gap falls to 15% in industry (1,543 Euro and 1,336).

Already at one year from graduation, overall effectiveness was seen to be good. It was at least fairly effective in the view of 82% of the 2004 graduate cohort. After several years with no substantial change in this index, there has been a downward trend in degree effectiveness in the last four years surveyed (-3.6 percentage points from the 2002 survey to date).

Right from the outset, effectiveness was especially high for graduates in medicine (97.5%, although the number of employed graduates at one year from graduation is very low), engineering (94.7%), chemistry and pharmacology (94.3%) and architecture (92.0%).

While already significantly high from the first year, effectiveness tended to increase by a few percentage points in the years subsequent to graduation. This was especially due to the fact that graduates show greater appreciation for general subject areas leading to a broader, and less specialist background ⁵⁶ . Effectiveness values actually increased by almost 6 percentage points between the 1st and the 5th year for the class of 2000 graduates, although a similar trend was observed for the class of 1999 graduates. 86% of the graduates considered their qualification as fairly effective at one year from graduation while some 91% stated it was effective at five years.

The assessment of working conditions was particularly good already after just one year from graduation. This perceived high quality remained unchanged during the last 6 years of survey, ranging between a mean value of 69 and 72 on a scale of 0-100. Moreover, as time progressed, quality of work improved from 72 at one year to 81 at five years for the 2000 generation.

The specific university studies completed proved all important to achieve quality employment and the differences between the various degree course groupings (doctors, engineers, law graduates, chemistry and pharmacology graduates, and architects) tended to increase with time, with the more specialist groups providing the most positive answers (92 for doctors and 85 for the other groups).

While job satisfaction was fairly high level (with an average of 7.2 on a scale of 1-10) already in the first year following qualification, it increased further in the five-year period to exceed the 7.5 mark.
All the various aspects of the working activity examined proved, on average, to meet with graduate satisfaction already after one year from graduation. Like last year, particular satisfaction was expressed for aspects such as relations with colleagues, independence/autonomy, job location, acquisition of professional skills, involvement in the decision-making processes and social usefulness of the job. Less satisfaction was expressed, however, for consistency with degree studies, job security, career prospects, and especially free time available.

As a rule, women were less satisfied with their employment, in particular they proved decidedly less gratified by their earnings and career prospects both at one and five years. The only exceptions where women demonstrated greater levels of satisfaction regarded the social usefulness of the job and the available free time.

Working in the public sector produced slightly higher job satisfaction levels (an average of 7.7 compared with 7.5 in the private sector at five years from graduation). The aspects that carried most weight in the positive assessment given by public sector graduate employees, at five years from graduation, were the social usefulness of the work, free time and consistency with the university studies completed. In the private sector by contrast, job satisfaction was mainly derived from the earnings and career prospects and involvement in the decision-making processes. The two sectors showed no appreciable differences regarding the other aspects linked to job satisfaction.

Greater job satisfaction was recorded among full-time workers with an average of 7.5 compared to 6.5 among part-time workers at one year from graduation, and 7.6 as against 7.1 at five years. At five years from graduation, part-time work was seen to be disadvantageous particularly for job security, earnings and career prospects, job prestige and the opportunity to acquire professional skills. Part-time graduates on the other hand, expressed greater satisfaction than full-time workers with free time, flexible working hours and social usefulness of their jobs.

During the first year following graduation workers in northern Italy stated that they were slightly more satisfied than those in the south (7.3 compared to 7), although in the course of the subsequent five years, assessments levelled off at the 7.5 mark. At five years from graduation however, those working in the north were more satisfied as regards job security, while social usefulness and flexible working hours were the aspects that met with greatest satisfaction among the graduates working in the south.

A specific in-depth study was carried out at both one and five years from graduation that grouped together degree courses into two broad areas of study, the technical-scientific and the human and social sciences⁵⁸

Both study areas are undergoing the process of growth in the number of women graduates experienced by the Italian university system as a whole. The female component is dominant in the human and social sciences (close to 65% for the classes of both 2004 and 2000 graduates), whereas they are still in a minority, albeit growing, in the technical-scientific study areas in the years under examination (they account for 44% of the class of 2004 graduates).

Focussing on the 2004 cohort, the different composition of the subject areas investigated on the basis of the graduates’ area of residence make interesting reading. In the technical-scientific area there is a higher percentage of graduates resident in northern Italy (42%), followed by those living in southern Italy (37%). The situation is reversed for graduates from the human sciences (37% and 41% respectively).

Differences in the nature of the degree courses in the two subject areas obviously affect employment outcomes, particularly in the period immediately following graduation.

At one year from graduation, 60% of the technical-scientific graduates are employed while only 50% of those who graduated in the human and social sciences have a job. This difference in employment rate is entirely attributable to the different numbers of graduates stating they are searching for a job, which amount to 19% of graduates from the technical subjects and 29% from the human sciences. This in-depth study takes into account the different proportions of graduates from the various degree courses who go on to postgraduate study, and it is therefore important to refer also to the less restrictive definition of employed graduates which includes those who are pursuing paid postgraduate studies.

The difference in employment rate between the two areas is increasing. Indeed, almost 80% of those with a degree in technical-scientific subjects are employed as opposed to 63% of those with a degree in a human science. As mentioned earlier (see section 3.1 Fall in employment of pre-reform graduates at one year from graduation), most of the increase in the employment rate among those with a technical-scientific degree is accounted for by graduates in medicine, science and geo-biology.

Employment at five years from graduation (excluding those who are in paid postgraduate study) has increased to 86% of the graduates in both subject areas. If the less restrictive definition is adopted, however, we can see differences reappearing with an employment rate in the technical-scientific area of 95% as opposed to 88% for graduates from the human and social sciences. In this case the figures are again impacted particularly by graduates from the three subject areas pointed out above, who at five years from graduation still include a high proportion of postgraduate students.

At five years from graduation, more graduates from the technical-scientific subject areas enjoy job security (74% as against 71% for those with degrees in the human and social sciences). This figure largely reflects self-employment that involves 27% and 22% of employed graduates respectively. Permanent employment, by contrast, is more widespread among graduates in the human sciences (50%) than among those in the technical-scientific areas (47%).

Differences in earnings are again better for science graduates and the margin increases over time. At one year from graduation there is a difference of 9% (with a net monthly income of 1,049 Euro as against 965 for human science graduates), while at five years from graduation the difference grows to as much as 17% (1,472 Euro as against 1,257 Euro respectively).

Finally, the results in terms of effectiveness of the degree are impacted by the specialist training provided by the various postgraduate courses. In the five years from graduation under consideration, effectiveness increases more significantly among graduates in the technical-scientific subjects.

Employment for Ministry of Education-approved degree courses. The special nature of the courses under examination (with the exception of statistics) that require postgraduate study for a substantial number of graduates, suggests once again using the definition of “employed graduate” provided by the Labour Force Surveys. Once this definition is adopted, it can be observed that since the very first year from graduation, graduate employment for the four courses of study is good. For all the courses considered, the employment rate at one year from graduation is even higher than that for the whole of the graduate population (71.4% as against 68.6%). At five years from graduation the employment rate booms to as much as 92.7%, as against 90.3% for the entire graduate population.

The above results appear to contradict some very widespread commonly held ideas. The problem in Italy seems to be linked not so much to the entry of these graduates into employment but to the paucity of their numbers. For this reason, as has been frequently stated also by many authoritative sources, there should be incentives to encourage higher enrolment numbers. In relation to the international panorama, in which the crisis in scientific vocation has also been felt, Italy is experiencing a delay in the numbers of trained graduates. Positive signs are expected to result from the improvement in enrolment figures that started prior to the introduction of government measures, although the latter expected to boost these figures even more. The underlying issue, rather than being the employment of current graduates, seems to be the employability of a possibly much larger number of graduates in the future, which the Italian productive system would no longer be able to absorb due to continuing low investment in research and innovation.

The study shows that 11% of the class of 2004 graduates experienced study abroad periods during their undergraduate years (7% with Erasmus or other European Union programmes). The figures for those under a European Union programme were obviously very high among foreign language undergraduates (22%), but also involved political and social science (13%) and architecture students (9%). The findings showed no significant gender differences among those who had spent study periods abroad.

At one year from graduation, graduates with a study period abroad did not enjoy a material employment differential compared to those who had no such experience (53.7% employed as against 52.7%). The comparison changes for those with study periods abroad arranged by their own initiative or under a different type of programme (but was still recognised for their degree course). In this case, the difference increases by up to 6.6 percentage points (with an employment rate of 59.3%). More generally, the greater employability of those with study periods abroad is not consistently confirmed by analyses by degree course.

From the point of view of earnings at one year from graduation, study periods abroad were also shown to bring a very slight advantage. The net monthly earnings of Erasmus graduates are 1,005 Euro (+4%) and for graduates with other study abroad experiences 1,018 Euro (+5.3%), compared to 967 Euro for those without such study experience abroad.

At five years from graduation, the level of appreciation shown by the employment market for graduates with study periods abroad remains substantially unchanged. The difference between graduates without study experiences abroad and Erasmus graduates is 2.4% (88.7% as against 86.3%), and there are virtually no differences between them and graduates with other kinds of study periods abroad.

At five years, Erasmus graduates perform better in terms of earnings, with an income 11.3% higher than graduates without study abroad experience and 7.6% more than those with other kinds of study experiences abroad.

Focusing on graduates who are not self-employed, the study shows that Erasmus graduates account for a higher proportion of private sector employees (73%) compared to those without study periods abroad (68%), pointing to the higher economic value attributed by the private sector to this kind of experience. If the analysis takes into account only those graduates who started employment after receiving their degree, the results show that the income gained by graduates with Erasmus experience (or under another EU programme) now working in private companies was 12% higher (whittling down to only 2% for public sector employees) than those with no such experience. This difference in earnings is largely attributable to the greater level of appreciation of these experiences shown by large firms (with 100 or more employees).

More generally, the improved – though certainly not comforting – results shown by this survey in comparison to last year’s might reflect the difficulties of Italian industry in competing on international markets. This hypothesis would seem to be confirmed also by the employment trends of graduates with study experiences abroad in the 3-5 year period, and would suggest that Italy’s production system has failed to appreciate the value added attained by a period of study abroad⁵⁹

Studying abroad, however, enhances the perception of the labour market as an international market and facilitates geographical job mobility. In fact, at five years from graduation, 18.5% of those with a study period abroad found jobs abroad as against 3% of those who had stayed in Italy.

At one year from graduation slightly more than 13% of pre-reform graduates were found to be studying for a master’s degree (university and non-university based), representing a 3.3% fall compared to last year’s survey. This fall comes after a sustained period of growth. This year’s survey shows that the number of graduates enrolled on master’s degree courses (both first- and second-level) offered or run by universities has overtaken that for those attending non-university based courses. At the time of interview, 8% of the graduates examined were attending or had completed university based courses as against 5% who had opted for non-university courses (compared to 7 and 10% respectively for last year).

Master’s degree courses were opted for by graduates from all the degree subject groups, albeit in different numbers, ranging from approximately 23% for graduates in the political and social sciences, to 6% for the chemistry and pharmacology group. An equal number of men and women were involved, although ratios differed according to the various degree subjects. Master’s degree courses were attended by more graduates coming from advantaged backgrounds than from working class families (15.2% as against 11.6)⁶⁰

It is obviously impossible to gage the extent to which a master’s degree improves access to the employment market at one year from graduation. The in-depth studies outlined below therefore concentrate more on the possible value added enjoyed by master’s degree-holders among the class of 2000 graduates interviewed at five years from graduation.

The analysis considered the class of 2000 graduates who have completed this type of postgraduate training: they were 2,143 in all (representing 19% of all those interviewed), divided in almost identical numbers between those attending university-run master’s degree courses and those who took non-university-run courses (9.4 and 9,6% respectively).

At five years from graduation, the majority of graduates studying for a master’s degree come from the political and social science (17.3%) and the teaching groups (15.7%). The figures are lower for graduates in architecture (5%) and agriculture (3.5%).

Non-university master’s degree courses were attended most frequently by graduates in law, political and social sciences, psychology and letters (all nearly 12%) and least frequently by the medical graduates in the sciences group (3.5%).

Characteristics of the chosen master’s degree course. Master’s degree studies (both university- and non-university-run) were started on average at 19 and a half months after graduation, although almost 50% of the graduates began their courses during the first year following their first level degree.

The majority of graduates (54%) were already in jobs when they began studying for a master’s degree for which, in most cases, their first level degree was relevant.

Reasons for choice of master’s degree courses. Over 62% of the graduates stated they had chosen to take a master’s degree course in order to “enrich their educational background”. A further 23% mentioned the need to “acquire further skills in the chosen branch of work”. Finally, a more modest percentage (14%) enrolled on a master’s degree course because they experienced “problems in entering the job market”.

From the point of view of employment, the study raises the question of whether the job market fully appreciates the investment made by graduates in their postgraduate training. Graduates who have completed a first level master’s degree enjoy no significant advantage over those without a similar postgraduate qualification. At five years from graduation in fact, the percentage of graduates in employment was 86 for both cohorts. On the other hand, there is greater appreciation of second level master’s degrees as shown by the fact that those who have completed this kind of degree have a higher rate of employment than those who have not (89.6% as against 86%). Similar results were found for graduates with non-university-run master’s degrees (89%), with a difference of 3 percentage points.

The same question arises again when looking at job security. For all the graduate cohorts with master’s degrees examined, the level of job security enjoyed by master’s degree-holders was found to be even lower than for graduates with no postgraduate experience. While at five years from graduation 75% of graduates without any kind of master’s degree had stable jobs, job security was enjoyed by only 63, 65 and 66% of the graduates who had completed first level, second level university and other types of master’s degrees respectively.

The employment market shows little appreciation of graduates with first level university master’s degree also in terms of net monthly earnings, which are lower than those of their counterparts without such qualifications (21 Euro less).

The situation is different for graduates who have completed a second level university or another type of master’s degree. In the first group, the net monthly salary is 6.5% higher (86 Euro more compared with those without the qualification) while for those who have another type of master’s degree the increase is down to 2.4% (32 Euro more).

In-house company training carried out during undergraduate study concerned only a small, but growing proportion of students under the pre-reform university system (16% of all graduates) ⁶¹ . This kind of work experience was most commonly found among graduates in teaching (62%) and agriculture (68%) while it is still not very widespread among graduates in the architecture, psychology, sciences, foreign languages, letters and law groups (for which the proportion of those who have in-house company training experience is below 10%) ⁶².

Already in the 12 months following graduation, having undergraduate work experience was linked with a significant employment advantage, (+10 percentage points) over those without a similar experience. This advantage was observed to be slightly less than that of the last survey.

The same employment advantage –also generally confirmed within the various degree subject groups – was seen also for the 13% of graduates who had gained in-house company training experience after graduation. Employment rates went from 68.2% for those who had such experience to 53.1% for those who did not (a difference of 15 percentage points, 4 more than was found in the last survey).

The employment advantage is seen to be even stronger (up to 23 percentage points) when considering graduates who were not in employment at the time of graduation. Of these in fact, at one year from graduation, the employment rate of graduates who had work experience as undergraduates was 65% compared to 42% for those who did not.

It should obviously be kept in mind that this type of training activity can be facilitated by a series of factors including degree course, contact networks, different dynamic quality of the various labour market sectors, etc.

Postgraduate in-house company training experience was found to be particularly widespread among newly qualified graduates in the political and social sciences, and economics-statistics groups (23% and 21% respectively). It was much less widespread among medicine graduates (2.6%), psychology and law graduates (both slightly above 5%). Work experience was also found to be slightly more common among women than men graduates (13.3% and 12.6% respectively), and significantly more among graduates residing in northern rather than southern Italy (15.8% compared with 10% respectively).

That previous in-house company training or work experience is used by companies as a useful first step in their personnel selection process was confirmed by the high number of graduates who became permanent employees in the companies where they had worked as a follow-up to this kind of training (28%)⁶³.

75% of all graduates were found to have a good knowledge of at least one IT tool ⁶⁴ . Using the Internet (69% of all graduates) and word-processing (58% of graduates) were particularly widespread skills. Website development and data transmission network managing skills, on the other hand, applied to only 9% and 8% of those interviewed respectively.

While 15 graduates out of a hundred had good knowledge of at least 6 IT tools, some 13% did not have good knowledge of even one tool. A further 13% were familiar with 2 tools at most and as many again with 3 IT tools.

The degree course groupings seen to provide graduates with the best IT background (very good knowledge of at least 6 IT tools) were engineering, sciences, architecture and economics-statistics. Men had a broader IT background than women, a difference that was observed right across the various degree course groups.

The percentage of those in employment increased in parallel with the increase in the number of IT skills (from 46% among those without any IT knowledge, to 60% for those familiar with at least 6 IT tools). This trend was generally confirmed within the individual degree course groups. Moreover good IT skills were generally associated with – and further confirmed within many degree courses – greater degree effectiveness and higher earnings.

Focusing on just those graduates who started working after attaining their degree, it was found that IT skills were most prevalent among those with medium to high and executive-managerial employee status, with knowledge of at least 6 IT tools in the case of 21% of the first group and 25% of the second. IT skills were high level among graduates in the liberal professions (27%), entrepreneurs and graduates running their own businesses (17%).

As in the previous survey, numerous teachers were found to be completely unskilled in any IT tool, even if this lack of knowledge varied according to different teaching levels and subject areas. Moreover, the low overall figure may be largely attributable to the contingent of (prevalently female) pre-school and primary school teachers.

More than one quarter of the graduates in employment at one year from graduation were continuing in the jobs they had held during their university years. At five years from graduation, this figure was still 12%. This job continuity was particularly evident in the public sector, concerning some 43% of all working graduates at one year from graduation (and 22% at five years, both figures representing an increase compared to last year’s survey). In the private sector, the same job was being continued at one year after qualification by 23%, and by 9% after five years.

Any meaningful analysis of the potential to attract graduate employees of the public and private sector should therefore focus only on those graduates who start working after obtaining their degrees. However, the changes introduced this year with the implementation of the Biagi Reform also need to be taken into account. The reform impacted the public and private sectors differently, abolishing contract work only in the private sector.

At one year from graduation, a little less than one fifth of those who started working after their degree were employed in the public sector and, correspondingly, some 80% of working graduates were engaged in the private sector. At five years from qualification, these figures were 29% and 71% respectively.

Labour contracts differ widely in the two sectors. Although decidedly on the decrease compared to previous surveys, trainee contracts (formerly first-job labour contracts) are more widespread in the private sector – where they have been in use for many years – and account for 8% of graduates at one year, as against 2% in the public sector.

Fixed-term contracts, by contrast, were a strong feature in public sector employment, concerning 38% of all employed graduates at one year (compared to 40% last year), as against 25% of those in the private sector (the same as last year).

Collaboration contracts ⁶⁵ were widely used in both sectors, but especially in the public sector where it applied to 40% of the graduates in employment (compared to 30% of those in the private sector).

At five years from graduation, the permanent employment contracts in the public sector increased from 12% to 31%. Collaboration contracts fell by around 19 percentage points, but in the same period a larger number of public sector employed graduates were working under a fixed-term contract (from 38% at one year from graduation to 41% after five years). In the private sector, permanent employment was enjoyed by a higher percentage of graduates at five years (74% compared to 25% at one year) with a consequent fall in the other forms of employment contracts.

Moving toward job security. The issues of how long it took for graduates to move to regular, permanent forms of employment and in what measure they did so, were studied in detail through a longitudinal study of those in employment both at one and five years after graduation.

Like last year, during this time interval, the private sector was seen to convert 81% of its fixed-term contracts into permanent job contracts. In the public sector, where in addition to the impact of the freeze on hiring and the fact that permanent employment was achieved through the more lengthy system of public competitions (affecting 31% of all graduates in employment at five years from graduation), only 34% of fixed-term contract holders moved to permanent positions in the same period.

Collaboration contracts were found to be the most long-lasting forms of temporary labour contract, particularly in the public sector as a result of the freeze on hiring. In fact, 7 out of 10 graduates employed in the public sector and 4 out of 10 in the private sector were seen to be working under this type of contract through the period under examination.

Aspirations at graduation and achievements after five years. Already at graduation, the aspiration of university leavers showed significant differences based on geographical areas. As well as the social-cultural factors involved, these differences are probably due to the varying employment opportunities available. While different preferences regarding public or private sector employment were not as marked as last year’s, and although over half of the graduates did not state any such preferences, residents in southern Italy showed a preference for public sector employment (12.8% as against 10.7% in northern Italy), or for self-employment (10% compared to 8.9%). A comparison of the preferences expressed at graduation and the achievements at five years paints a largely positive picture, albeit with several significant differences closely associated with the individual aspirations expressed. In fact, of those expressing a desire for public sector employment, 44% of graduates living in southern Italy had achieved this goal, as against 48% in the north, and of those wanting to start their own business, 50% of graduates in the south and 51% of those in the north had done so ⁶⁶ . Finally, of those who wished to work as private sector employees, 73% of northern residents succeeded as against 63% of graduates living in southern Italy.

The findings on the graduate approach to the labour market clearly confirmed the importance of the original family environment. As shown in previous Reports, final degree grade and employment rates were not always directly correlated. At one year from graduation, a direct correlation was observed up to the threshold of the highest marks obtained. For newly qualified graduates with top marks (110 cum laude), employment fell to minimum levels, indicating that academic success gave rise to high employment expectations. In these cases, graduates nurtured their expectations and were prepared to wait for the right job opportunities to materialise, helped also by the families’ favourable socio-economic backgrounds that made this possible. The lowest employment rate in fact (43%) was seen among graduates from families in which both parents had degrees. The rate rose a few percentage points for graduates from families where just one parent had a degree. A proportionally much higher number of graduates with less wealthy families were in employment (as many as 11% more) some of whom, probably having to rely exclusively on their own earnings, were already working at the time of graduation or made a determined effort to find employment as quickly as possible.

The numbers and characteristics of those who, even in the year immediately following qualification, continued some form of further education and training confirmed the above considerations. At more than 68% of the total, they represented a very high number of graduates, a fact that raises complex issues for the whole university educational system, especially given the extremely high average age at qualification in Italy, which is approximately 27! The fact remains, however, that more young (!) graduates who pursued postgraduate studies were culturally and socially advantaged, and achieved the best performance as well. As in previous years, almost 79% of those with two graduate parents continued in academic study, as against 62% whose family have no academic qualifications at all. 75% of those achieving top grades and 67% of those at the lower end of the grade scale (less than 90 out of a maximum of 110) continued in postgraduate education.

The findings confirmed a general panorama in which higher education has undoubtedly been made much more accessible, allowing a growing number of young people from less advantaged backgrounds to gain a university degree. In 2004, almost three quarters of all graduates were the first in their families to attain a degree. The findings also confirm a further lengthening of the time spent in higher education to allow graduates to achieve the most sought after and competitive educational goals, which for this very reason, remain within the grasp only of those who can afford it ⁶⁷.

Like the ISTAT survey of graduate entry into the labour market, most of our tables presented consider as “employed persons” those graduates who declared they were in remunerated employment, provided this did not entail a training activity (training period, apprenticeship, PhD research, specialisation course). In other words, receiving an income is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being considered a graduate with a job.

Only some of the tables have used the ISTAT “employment rate” of the Labour Force Report. In these cases, the table is accompanied by a specific note to this effect. According to this “less restrictive” approach, all those who declare they are employed in some activity are considered as employed, even if they are trainees or working without a formal labour contract, but provided they receive financial remuneration ⁶⁸.

Unemployment rates were calculated using the ISTAT approach used in its ongoing survey of the Labour Force.

The unemployment rate was obtained from the ratio between those seeking employment and those in employment. Those seeking employment (or unemployed) are all those aged between 15 and 74 who stated they were seeking employment, had made at least one “active” effort to find employment in the four weeks prior to the interview, and were available immediately (within two weeks) to start work if they received a job offer. The unemployed also include those who stated they had found a job but would be starting work in the future, but at the same time had to declare their willingness to accept a job within two weeks if offered such a job.

The effectiveness of a university degree has the advantage of summing two important aspects linked to the usefulness and the spendability of a university degree on the labour market. This index is derived from combining questions that assess the extent to which the graduate is using the knowledge acquired during the degree course and the formal and substantive need for the qualification in order to perform their current job.

Five levels of effectiveness were identified as follows::

• very effective: employed graduates whose degree was either required by law or necessary in practice, and made substantial use of the knowledge acquired at university;
• effective: employed graduates had a degree that was not required by law but was nonetheless useful, and made substantial use of their university-acquired knowledge, or for whom a degree was required by law but made only slight use of the knowledge acquired at university;
• fairly effective: employed graduates whose degree was not required by law but was necessary or useful in practice, but made only slight use of their university-acquired knowledge;
• not very effective: employed graduates with a degree that was neither required by law nor did it have any bearing on their job, and made little use of their university-acquired knowledge; or their degree was not required by law but was nevertheless useful even if they made no use whatsoever of their university training;
• not at all effective: employed graduates with a degree that was not required by law, nor was their qualification in any way useful to their job, and who made no use whatsoever of their university-acquired knowledge.

These categories are mutually exclusive although not exhaustive and do not include non-respondents or the interviewees whose answers did not fit into any of these predefined categories.

The Quality of work index was calculated on the basis of all graduates in employment and was obtained by combining four variables associated with different aspects of employment: the work contract, the extent to which the knowledge acquired at university was used, the formal and the substantive need for the degree qualification (which were also used for calculating the effectiveness index), and job satisfaction in relation to a series of aspects (earnings prospects, career prospects, acquisition of professional skills, independence and autonomy at work, amount of free time).

Given the diverse nature of the factors considered, several of which are objective and incontrovertible, such as the type of labour contract, while others were subjective and linked to the graduate’s individual perceptions, such as job satisfaction, the four variables were attributed different “weights”. The reliability and accuracy of this weighting system was assessed with the aid of appropriate statistical tools. The highest weight (4) was attributed to the labour contract, followed by use of the university-acquired knowledge and the requirement for a degree qualification (weighted 3), and job satisfaction (weighted 2). The index varied on a scale of 0-100.

Graduates were attributed a social class according to the scheme devised by A. Cobalti and A. Schizzerotto in 1994 ⁶⁹ , and reconfirmed more recently ⁷⁰. Social class is defined by comparing the socio-economic position of the father as well as the mother of the graduate, and applying the highest position of the two parents (“dominance” principle). Socio-economic status can be divided into middle class, white-collar middle class, lower middle class and working class. Middle class is located at the top of the scale while working class is at the bottom. White-collar middle class and lower middle class are considered as more or less on the same level, neither being predominant over the other. Both however are considered above working class and below middle class. Graduates who have one parent in the lower middle class and the other in the white-collar middle class were allocated the socio-economic status of the father (in this situation it would not be possible to choose between white collar middle class and the lower middle class on the basis of the dominance principle).

The socio-economic status of each parent is a function of the last profession held and qualification and is set out as follows:
• entrepreneurs, members of the liberal professions and executives are allocated to the middle class;
• clerical employees or middle management staff with a school diploma higher than a compulsory school-leaving certificate are allocated to the white collar middle class;
• self-employed workers, partners in cooperatives and assistant management staff are allocated to the lower middle class;
• clerical employees with compulsory schooling certificate, and manual and domestic workers are classified as working class.

Graduates whose mothers are housewives are allocated the socio-economic class of their fathers.

Cox’s regression model, also known as proportional hazard regression analysis, follows the approach of models analysing survival data in order to explore simultaneously the effect of several variables applicable to expected survival time, and to compare survival distributions among the different population subsets.

In our analysis, Cox’s regression model was used to the extent that the function of survival in the condition of unemployment that characterises each segment, known as Si(t), is impacted by several explicative variables.

Formally the model is expressed by the following function:

where Si(t) indicates the survival function characterising segment i, or the probability of not being in employment after t number of months subsequent to gaining a degree; xij is the value assumed by the variable Xj with regard to segment i; ßj indicates the parameter that expresses the effect exercised by the variable Xj on the survival function; and S0(t) indicates the function of baseline survival, i.e. relative to the segment whereby xij = 0 for each j=1, …,J.

The model was applied to the whole cohort for the class of 2000 graduates not in employment at the time of gaining their degrees. The variables potentially significant for determining the different method of entry into the labour market considered in the model, are: the degree course grouping; gender (and for men, national military service status); geographical residence at qualification; any work experience gained during undergraduate study; type of work aspired to at the time of qualification. All of these proved to be significant and were considered in the model.

The B parameters estimated by the model (see Table 1) represent the effect exercised by the individual method considered with respect to the class of reference of the explicative variable (or level of reference, indicated in bold in the table). As a rule, only those methods with levels of significance (given in the 3rd column of the table) lower than 0.05 were assessed. If the estimated B parameter is positive, the probability of remaining in unemployment falls with respect to that of the class of reference. By contrast, if the parameter is negative, then the likelihood of remaining in unemployment increases.

It should be emphasised that the model described above was applied exclusively for descriptive purposes, with no attempt to put forward or test any complex hypotheses or details to explain the duration of the unemployment period.

Table 1 – Cox’s model used to estimate the time taken to enter the labour market

The following is the classification adopted by the Italian Statistics Board (ISTAT) of the degree categories/courses available at Italian universities.

POST-REFORM GRADUATES Groupings of degree categories

Agriculture: Agrarian, Forestry and Agricultural Food Sciences and Technologies; Zootechnical Sciences and Technologies and Animal Husbandry.

Architecture: : Industrial Design, Science of Architecture and Construction Engineering; Urban Planning; Land-Use and Environmental Planning.

Chemistry and Pharmacology: Chemical Science and Technology; Pharmaceutical Science and Technology.

Economics and Statistics: Economics and Business Management; Economics; Statistics. Physical Education: Motor and Sports Science.

Geo-biology: Biotechnologies; Biological Sciences; Earth Sciences; Environmental and Natural Sciences and Technologies; Geography.

Law: Legal Services; Law.

Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering; IT Engineering; Industrial Engineering.

Teaching: Teaching and Education Sciences.

Letters: Letters; Heritage Conservation Science; Science and Technology of the Figurative Arts, Music, Performance and Fashion; Philosophy; History; Heritage Conservation and Restoration Technologies.

Languages: Modern Languages and Cultures; Language Mediation Science.

Medicine: Prevention Healthcare Professions; Rehabilitation Healthcare Professions; Healthcare, Nursing Professions and Obstetrics; Technical Healthcare Professions.

Political and Social Sciences: Communication Sciences; Administration Sciences; Social Services; Science of Tourism; Political Science and International Relations; Social Sciences for Cooperation, Development and Peace; Sociology.

Psychology: Psychological Sciences and Technologies.

Sciences: Physical Sciences and Technologies; Information Science and Technology; Mathematics.

PRE-REFORM GRADUATES Groupings of degree courses

Agriculture: Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture; Veterinary Medicine; Agrarian Sciences; Tropical and Subtropical Agrarian Sciences; Animal Husbandry; Food Preparation Sciences; Agricultural Sciences and Technologies; Food Sciences and Technologies; Animal Husbandry Sciences and Technologies; Forestry Sciences; Forestry and Environmental Sciences.

Architecture: Architecture; Land-Use and Urban Planning; Land-Use, Urban and Environmental Planning; History and Conservation of the Architectural and Environmental Heritage.

Chemistry and Pharmacology: Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies; Chemistry; Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology; Industrial Chemistry; Pharmacology; Biotechnologies.

Economics and Statistics: Economic and Social Disciplines; Environmental Economics; Business Economics; Banking Economics; Banking, Financial and Insurances Economics; International Trade and Currency Market Economics; Economics of Tourism; Economics of Public Administrations and International Institutions; Economics of Institutions and Financial Markets; Economics and Trade; Economics and Finance; Maritime and Transportation Economics; Political Economics, Marketing; Banking and Insurance; Economics; Economics and Banking; Economics and Social Sciences; Statistics, Demographics and Social Sciences; Statistics and Demographics; Statistics and Actuarial Sciences; Statistics and Economics; Statistics and Business IT; Tourism.

Physical Education: Motor Science.

Geo-biology: Biotechnologies; Agricultural Plant Biotechnologies; Industrial Biotechnologies; Medical Biotechnologies; Veterinary Biotechnologies; Environmental Sciences; Biology; Geology; Natural Sciences.

Law: Law; Administrative Sciences; Strategic Sciences.

Engineering: Aeronautical Engineering; Astronautical Engineering; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical Engineering; Civil Engineering; Civil Transportation Eng; Civil Eng. for Soil Protection and Land-Use Planning; Materials Eng.; Industrial Technologies Eng.; Telecommunications Eng.; Construction Eng.; Electrical Eng.; Electronic Eng.; Electro-technical Eng.; Forestry Eng.; Business Eng.; IT Eng.; Mechanical Eng.; Mining Eng.; Naval Eng.; Naval and Mechanical Eng.; Nuclear Eng.; Eng. for Environment and Land-Use Planning.

Teaching: Pedagogy; Education Sciences; Primary Education Sciences.

Letters: Cultural Heritage Conservation; The Arts, Music and the Performing Arts; Philosophy; Geography; Letters; Literature; History; Cultural Sciences; Comparative Studies.

Languages: Interpretation; Oriental Languages and Culture; European Languages and Culture; Oriental Languages and Literature; Foreign Languages and Literature; European Foreign Languages and Literature; Modern Foreign Languages and Literature; Translation; Translation and Interpretation; Intercultural Sciences and Techniques.

Medicine: Medicine and Surgery; Dentistry and Dental Prosthetics; Health Provision and Planning Sciences.

Political and Social Sciences: Public Relations; Communication Sciences; International and Diplomatic Sciences; Political Sciences; Social Services; Sociology; Community Policy Studies.

Psychology: Psychology.

Sciences: Astronomy; Physics; Information Technology; Mathematics; Materials Sciences; Information Sciences.

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Notes

7 A. Cammelli, La qualità del capitale umano dell’università. Caratteristiche e performance dei laureati 2003, il Mulino, Bologna, 2005.

8 Pre-reform graduates also include single-cycle specialist degree holders who, at least until the 2004 generation, can be considered as pre-reform graduates (see A. Cammelli, “La qualità del capitale umano dell’università”, in Profilo dei laureati 2004, Bologna, 2005, p. VIII).

9 First level courses were introduced with the 1999 university reform and implemented as from 2001 (by some universities as early as from 2000).

10 The trends shown are consistent with the official trends published by the Ministry for Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research. See MIUR, Indagine sull’Istruzione Universitaria (Survey of University Education), various years.

11 As was pointed out in the Graduate Profile 2004, it remains to be seen “ to what extent these improvements are due to a virtuous process rather than to the fact that a portion of the university’s undergraduate population (with serious problems regarding completion times, etc.) is changing over from the old degree courses to first-level degrees” (See A. Cammelli, “La qualità del capitale umano dell’università”, in Profilo dei laureati 2004, op. cit., p. XI).

12 The number of graduates who work during their undergraduate studies increases in parallel with a decrease in those who state that they intend to pursue further academic study (down from 66% to 57%).

13 The cohort participating in this survey includes graduates from Rome – La Sapienza University, which, as mentioned earlier, also investigated first level graduates.

14 The CATI-method telephone survey was conducted by SWG, Trieste, winner of a European call for tenders and Co-ordinated by the AlmaLaurea Consortium.

15 The wide range of services that AlmaLaurea has been providing to graduates for many years (including, among other things, checking and updating the official documentation contained in the curriculum vitae, a facility for consulting and responding to job vacancies, an alert service for job postings, postgraduate training course listings, and certification of the graduate’s university course performance for job competitions and/or foreign scholarship applications) is a linchpin of the growing process of building graduate “customer loyalty” and an invaluable factor for constantly updating the databanks.

16 Reproportioning is done through an iterative procedure that attributes a “weight” to every graduate interviewed so that the relative distributions of the variables re-apportioned are as similar as possible to those observed across the entire Italian graduate population. A graduate whose sociographic features (gender, university department, degree course grouping, university, area of residence at graduation) are very common among the population but not in the AlmaLaurea sample, will be attributed a proportionally higher weight. Conversely, a graduate with features that are common in the AlmaLaurea sample but not across the whole population will be attributed a proportionally lower weight. In order to obtain even more reliable results, the interactions between gender and the other variables were taken into account. See CISIA-CERESTA, Manuale di SPAD. Versione 4.5, Paris, 2001.

17 The remaining portion, equal to 3.3%, is made up of graduates who are neither working, nor searching for a job, nor enrolled for postgraduate studies (mostly because they are pursuing other training activities).

18 Based on the sub-division suggested by G. Catalano and A. Figà Talamanca in “Eurotudent. Le condizioni di vita e di studio degli studenti universitari italiani” (il Mulino, 2002), this area includes the following degree course groupings: agriculture, architecture, chemistry and pharmacology, physical education, geo-biology, engineering, medicine, and the sciences.

19 This category brings together the following groups: economics-statistics, law, teaching, letters, languages, political and social sciences and psychology.

20 The Ministerial Decree of October 23, 2003 entitled “Fondo per il sostegno dei giovani e per favorire la mobilità degli studenti”, provides, among other things, for the reimbursement of tuition fees and other charges payable by students enrolled on the following degree courses: mathematics, physical science and technology, chemical science and technology, and statistics. Our study investigated the pre-reform courses in these four disciplines. See A. Cammelli, Physics from school to the job market. The Italian Job Market in Physics, under publication in Giornale di Fisica, (Vol. 47, No. 1, 2006), available for consultation on the Internet at www.almalaurea.it/universita/altro/fisica2005.

21 The proportion of those who, at one year from graduation, have abandoned (1.4%) or have completed (0.5%) their postgraduate degree courses should be added to this cohort. This is actually a small number of graduates, representing highly peculiar careers (conversions of previous training courses), which in any case do not affect the observations in this section.

22 Finally, a small but significant proportion of graduates (nearly 2%) continue their academic training with a further first level degree. This is particularly the case among physical education, teaching and chemistry and pharmacology graduates.

23 The figures are based on the original degree subject groupings, regardless of the chosen postgraduate degree course.

24 For further details on the groupings used for the different types of contracts see section 3.10 -At one year from graduation 39 out of 100 graduates have permanent jobs.

25 See Methodological Notes

26 See Methodological Notes

27 The unemployment rate is defined by the relationship between those who are actively seeking work and the labour force, where the latter represents the sum of those actively seeking a job and those in employment. It should be pointed out that the definition of “unemployed” underestimates the magnitude of the phenomenon by not taking into account those who have lost faith in their job search due to repeated failure in their attempts. See Methodological Notes.

28 There have been some improvements in the employment situation in Italy, but there are still several structural weaknesses to be dealt with. Along with Great Britain, Greece, Spain and France, Italy has experienced the “most significant falls in structural unemployment rates” between 1995 and 2004, and (together with Spain, Ireland and Latvia) “the biggest fall in long term unemployment”. Italy is still far from achieving the employment goals set by the Lisbon conference and, in employment terms, is one of the 5 weakest countries in the European Union (with France, Germany, Poland and Spain). There are few incentives to help entry or re-entry into the job market due to delays in or limited implementation of structural reforms. European Commission, Employment in Europe 2005. Trends and Prospects, 2005.

29 It should be noted, however, that the results for the University of Catanzaro are influenced by the peculiar employment situation of newly qualified doctors, surgeons and law graduates (94% of all graduates at this institution) who at one year from graduation are still largely engaged in training activities.

30 It should be noted, however, that the results for the University of Catanzaro are influenced by the peculiar employment situation of newly qualified doctors, surgeons and law graduates (94% of all graduates at this institution) who at one year from graduation are still largely engaged in training activities.

31 See several ideas mentioned in section 4.6 - Public and Private Sector Employment.

32 This definition has been adopted by the most recent surveys on graduate employment in Europe, i.e. CHEERS and REFLEX. The latter was recently launched with the partnership of the Istituto IARD Franco Brambilla-AlmaLaurea representing Italy.

33 As mentioned previously, the definition of “unemployed” underestimates the magnitude of the phenomenon by excluding those who have lost faith as a result of repeated failure in their attempts. However, this situation does not seem to be true for graduates interviewed at only one year from graduation.

34 ISTAT, Statistiche in breve Anno 2004, Rome, op. cit.

35 Similar considerations have also led the European surveys CHEERS and REFLEX to extend the period under investigation.

36 For further details see the reports by H. Schomburg (for Germany); J. Brennan (United Kingdom); P. Dubois, K. Thockler, V. Lepaux (France); J. G. Mora, A. Garcìa-Aracil (Spain); R. van der Velden, R. de Vries (Netherlands); E. Giermanowska (Poland); P. Ròbert (Hungary), in A. Cammelli (Ed.), La transizione dall’università al lavoro in Europa e in Italia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2005.

37 Regional differences were examined taking into consideration the province of residence of graduates, regardless of the location of their higher education institution.

38 For a comparison of how young people as a whole secure employment, see C. Buzzi, A. Cavalli, A. de Lillo, Giovani del nuovo secolo. Quinto Rapporto IARD sulla condizione giovanile in Italia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2002.

39 According to the ISSP-Censis 2003survey, the family and associated network of friends remains the main route for entering into the labour market in Italy. As many as 29.7% of Italians in fact state they have found a job thanks to the family, of whom 19.3% do so through a close relative and 10.4% through a distant relative. Quoted in Censis, XXXVII Rapporto sulla situazione sociale del paese, 2003.

40 Taken as time elapsed between graduation and securing a first job (of whatever nature) starting after the degree was awarded.

41 For further details on the Cox model, see the Methodological Notes

42 For a Europe-wide analysis of entry into the labour market, based on the criterion of a first “significant” job (i.e. a first job held for at least 6 months and requiring at least 20 working hours per week), see I. Kogan, La transizione dall’istruzione superiore al mercato del lavoro in Europa, in A. Cammelli (Ed.), La transizione dall’università al lavoro in Europa e in Italia, op. cit.

43 See Legislative Decree no. 276 of 10th September 2003, published in the Italian Official Gazette of 9th October 2003.

44 Permanent employment refers to full-time employees or self-employed graduates in the strict sense of the word (entrepreneurs, professionals or running their own business). The choice to include the self-employed in the permanent employment category is based on the finding that graduates do not consider this kind of work as a “makeshift” solution or a temporary occupation while waiting for a better opportunity. This finding emerged from AlmaLaurea surveys carried out in recent years based on job satisfaction, earnings and the search for a new job. By the term flexible employment (defined by others as temporary or flexible work) we mean fixed-term employment, “collaboration” labour contracts, (including contract work, ad hoc and project employment), temporary work and “contract work as part of an association”. We have also included in this category socially useful employment, community work and professional traineeships even though they do not require a regular employment contract. For the purposes of this study it was decided that a distinction should be made between trainee employment contracts and apprenticeships although a more general analysis would warrant their being considered under the heading of flexible employment, since in the case of the graduates interviewed, this proved to be a first step towards securing a regular full-time job. (See section 3.11 At five years from graduation 73 out of 100 graduates have permanent jobs).

45 In fact, until the 1999 European Commission decision (confirmed by several Court of Justice decisions in 2002 and 2004), the Italian law allowed a nationwide minimum tax relief of 25% to all employers hiring staff under these types of contracts. Moreover, certain categories of employers as well as companies based in southern Italy or in areas with high unemployment were able to benefit from higher tax relief. Such tax relief provisions however have been deemed incompatible with European competition laws and, as such, are regarded as “unlawful state support”.

46 The results would appear to confirm widespread fears about how the difficulties encountered in converting contract jobs into project contracts, as provided for by the Biagi Reform, would lead to their disappearance or their being absorbed by the undeclared economy.

47 According to a survey carried out by the Association Directory dell Risers Humane (Association of Human Resources Managers) “after 19 months since the Biagi law on flexible employment was approved, companies are still not using it very much”. The survey investigating the views of a sample of personnel managers (from 66 companies with a total of approximately 80,000 employees) revealed that 64% think that the Biagi law “is not easy to apply”, 58% believe it “has brought poor results”, while 48% feel it “creates job instability”. However, 77% of the managers interviewed believe that the law “increases company flexibility”, 61% that it “satisfies company needs” while 63% are in no doubt that it “promotes new jobs” (Repubblica.it, April 2005).

48 It will be interesting to see from the next survey whether the recent ministerial decree (published in the Italian Official Gazette of 31/1/2006) will produce the desired effects. Under the decree, companies can claim financial incentives to draw up first employment contracts for women workers.

49 That the percentage of graduates with non-voluntary, casual jobs tends to fall with time is also observed at the European level. See I. Kogan, op.cit.

50 A further, small number of graduates (40 individuals, i.e.14%) have moved from working without a formal labour contract to unemployment. Further analyses revealed that these were largely women graduates living in southern Italy.

51 Some 95% of graduates with jobs (the same as in last year’s survey) answered the questions regarding income and earnings, despite the delicacy of the topic. This large group of respondents makes the findings all the more reliable.

52 Press release: Contratti, retribuzioni e conflitti di lavoro, ISTAT, 31st January 2006.

53 ISTAT, ISTAT, Rapporto annuale. La situazione del Paese nel 2004, Rome, 2005. A recent report by Ires-CGIL claiming that those with lower qualifications generally enjoy higher incomes seems to lead to the opposite conclusions. The report appears not to take sufficient account of the fact that increases in graduate earnings occur in the medium-to-long term, with a different starting age depending on the qualifications held. This necessarily means that the age groups considered should not have an over-representation of individuals in higher age brackets. (See Ires-CGIL, Giovani, Lavoro e Sindacato, Rome, 2006).

54 Only those graduates who started the job examined in the survey after graduation and were in full-time employment were selected for the comparison.

55 For further details on the index definition, see Methodological Notes.

56 For further details on the spendability of university qualifications on the labour market and a critical review of the results of other surveys on this question in Italy and Europe, see A. Cammelli, A. di Francia, La laurea serve a qualcosa? Alla ricerca dell’efficacia esterna”, Il Mulino, Bologna, n.3, 2004.

57 For further details on the index definition, see Methodological Notes

58 As we saw earlier, the first area includes the following degree course groupings: agriculture, architecture, chemistry and pharmacology, physical education, geo-biology, engineering, medicine, sciences. The second area includes economics and statistics, law, teaching, letters, languages, political and social sciences and psychology.

59 According to the World Economic Forum, Italy is ranked 47th on the competitiveness classification list. According to the WEF director, this is mainly due to the constant decline in public funding, the pessimism caused by Italy’s poor economic development performance and, among other things, its effects on investment plans and to the significant fall in all the indicators linked to the quality of the institutional environment. This classification list, however, has been criticised by many observers who argue that, apart from a few objective parameters, it is based on the views of business spokesmen about their own country. According to the dean of the Bocconi University Maurizio Dall’Occhio, “Italian managers are among the most critical in the world and over dramatise the real situation […] Such a penalising position for Italy is due more to perceptions than to reality: a symptom, however, that should on no account be neglected because managers throughout the world base their investment decisions precisely on those perceptions” (www.sdabocconi.it). Yet, in the sphere of scientific research – as far as can be ascertained from the number of publications and citations – Italy “is ranked 8th” among the approximately thirty countries that contribute to almost the entire world’s scientific output. See D. A. King, The scientific impact of nations, Nature, vol. 430, 6997, pp. 311-316, 2004, cit. in M. Deaglio et al., Il sole sorge a Oriente, Guerini et al., 2005.

60 See Methodological Notes

61 It should be kept in mind that the analysis considered pre-reform graduates. Internship experience is much more prevalent, at 60%, among the first graduates of the new 3-year system. For a complete picture of the characteristics of these graduates, See Graduate Profile 2004, op. cit.

62 Thanks to an ad hoc survey carried out by AlmaLaurea through the web, several aspects of undergraduate in-house company training experiences were investigated. Interest in this form of training proved greater following the introduction of the university reform, which underlined the importance of such experience as a means of accessing the labour market. See A. Cammelli, La qualità del capitale umano dell’università in Europa e in Italia, il Mulino, Bologna, 2005.

63 A survey carried out by the Associazione Direttori Risorse Umane (Association of Human Resources Managers) has confirmed that “in-house company training is a great opportunity for newly-qualified graduates because these days no company employs people without any previous work experience. At the same time, it provides a great opportunity for companies to try out graduates at negligible costs”. Furthermore, “it should come as no surprise that in recent years companies use in-house company training much more frequently than they did in the past as a way of introducing newly-qualified graduates into employment. Given the current situation of limited recruitment” […] “companies can’t afford to make mistakes. This is why a six-month or one-year period spent working on a specific project agreed with the candidate allows the company to assess the competence and adaptability to the company environment of the graduate, and enables the new recruit to see exactly what kind of professional training the company provides” (ANSA, February 2004).

64 These were graduates who had a “good” or “excellent” knowledge of at least 1 of the 10 IT tools considered. The remaining group includes those who have no IT skills, those with limited or low-level skills, and those who had not completed the questionnaire.

65 “Collaboration” labour contracts include contract work, ad hoc contracts and “project” contracts.

66 For further details, see C. Girotti, S. Grandi, Sul lavoro e verso il lavoro: propensioni, aspettative e realtà, in A. Cammelli, M. La Rosa (ed.), I laureati in Italia. Le indagini di AlmaLaurea su scelte formative, orientamento al lavoro e occupabilità, Franco Angeli, Milan, 2004.

67 On the same topic dealt with on a Europe-wide scale, see also L. Gallino, La transizione università-lavoro in Europa. Il quadro di riferimento, in A. Cammelli, op. cit., 2005.

68 For further details, see ISTAT, La nuova rilevazione sulle forze di lavoro, Rome, 2004.

69 See A. Cobalti e A. Schizzerotto, La mobilità sociale in Italia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994.

70 Schizzerotto A. (ed.), Vite ineguali. Disuguaglianze e corsi di vita nell’Italia contemporanea, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2002.