COMPETENCIES AND EMPLOYABILITY OF ECONOMICS GRADUATES: EMPLOYERS' PERSPECTIVE

The phenomenon of an increased unemployment rate is pervasive among higher education graduates, which raises the question of competencies acquired within the higher education system as a basis for their employability. When assessing the performance and quality of higher education institutions (HEI) the emphasis has shifted from final goals or desired outputs (e.g. pass-rates or success in exams) to competencies that should be acquired during the education. These competencies should enable students to perform well in practical situations and upgrade the knowledge already acquired within the HEI system. Competencies cannot be observed and measured separately from the real circumstances students will face in practice after graduation. This fact introduces employers as relevant subjects that are in a position to give realistic assessment of the level of quality of required competencies. This paper investigates the employers' attitudes regarding competencies of graduates in economic and business studies and compares the importance of individual competencies with graduates' performance within their companies. The study was conducted among 300 surveyed employers in Croatia. Besides general, generic competencies, attitudes on groups of competencies specific for study programs in economics and business studies were analysed. The analysed results indicate that bigger gaps exist between importance and performance for generic compared to specific competencies. The impact of these findings on future study programmes is discussed.