LABOUR MARKET FORECASTING--TOWARDS INCREASING THE EMPLOYABILITY OF GRADUATES

摘要

The competitive position of any economy is greatly determined, among others, by its systemic capacity to avoid wasting any kind of capital, including human capital. At the macroeconomic level, the necessary condition must be satisfied: the education system should respond to the needs of the labour markets. For this reason, the quantitative and qualitative structure of higher education should respond and adapt to the current as well as future needs of changing economic and technological environment. Future economic needs can be assessed in the process of forecasting what is practiced in the most developed countries, e.g. Germany, Japan, the UK, and USA. However, the foresight and forecast of tendencies, demands and expectations in the labour market in the less developed part of the world is also necessary in order to define and stimulate the conditions of sustainable socio-economic development. The forecasting of future needs of an economy for labour is a significant tool for those responsible for educational programmes with direct influence on the future employability of graduates. The article will present a descriptive analysis of the problem as well as econometrics model describing relations between the economy (described in the model by labour force with higher education, GDP, (un)employment, labour-intensity of GDP, labour productivity, amount of university students/graduates, students-academics quantitative ratio) and the demand/supply sides of the labour market of highly qualified workers. The forecasting model was shaped through the adaptation of H. Correa and J. Tinbergen model in combination with the author's own revisions. The improving of the original model through own revisions was necessary to adjust of the equations, which originally took into consideration the situation of developing countries, to situation of developed countries with economies still in the process of transformation. The verification of the model was made on the basis of data describing chosen characteristics of Polish economy in years 1995 - 2006. On its basis, the Polish labour market forecasting in the EU budget-programming period until 2013 has been made.