84
Arunatilake and Jayawardena
percentage of job seekers showing preference
Figure 3.1
Frequency Distribution of Job Preferences by Education Level
35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
rank according to occupational preference less than O-level
O-level
A-level
Source: Authors’ calculations using Jobsnet data. Note: The X axis ranks different occupation categories according to the revealed preference of job seekers by education level (job seekers may have more than one preference). For example, more than 30 percent of job seekers with A-level qualifications wanted work in a single occupational category (in this case “computer associate professionals�).
one-third of job seekers there were willing to consider both temporary and permanent jobs. Females were more flexible than males about duration of employment. Although both males and females were fairly flexible (65.6 percent of the females and 57.4 percent of the males were indifferent to duration), 21.0 percent of the males would consider only permanent employment, compared with 14.4 percent of the females. Most job seekers in all skill categories were flexible about the duration of employment; however, the more-skilled seekers were more likely to look for permanent jobs. Not surprisingly, more-educated job seekers also were relatively more likely to look for permanent employment. The proportion of A-level-qualified job seekers looking only for permanent jobs was 9.2 percent, compared with 7.2 percent of O-level-qualified job seekers and 2.7 percent of job seekers with less than O-level qualifications. These findings show that employment duration is not a major source of mismatch, with the possible exception of job seekers in Western Province. A majority of the job seekers were willing to accept jobs whether or not they were permanent. As indicated earlier, the job seekers who register with Jobsnet tend to be those who are unable to find jobs in more