Career aspirations of young people in the Czech labour market

Abstract

The labour market demonstrates neoliberal failure toward markets. Supply and demand are affected by exogenous factors outside of the vaguely-defined market. The economic crisis of 2008 has only served to accentuate students' career aspirations, which may be considered important in levelling or conversely deepening structural problems in the labour market. The research was conducted in 2011 by the Faculty of Management and Economics, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, and aimed at the Czech Republic's secondary schools. The sample consisted of 1,628 students. In recent years, the Czech labour market has faced structural unemployment and increased secondary-schoolgraduate unemployment. For the purposes of the study, Roe's classification of occupations and theoretical conclusions was utilized, and the data was processed and subsequently compared to the unemployment structure in the Czech Republic. The research confirmed the career focus of Czech young people differs radically from the composition of unemployment in general. At the same time, students were found to have no concise direction in their professional development, resulting in financial losses in education as well as slower turnover in the labour market. Students prefer areas focusing on work with people on the fringes of selected classifications and are less interested in central areas, namely technology- and nature-oriented (industry, construction, logistics, agriculture etc.) areas. These, however, constitute the Czech economy's foundation and primarily contribute to its GDP. © Common Ground, Bishnupriya Dasgupta, Sreejata Mitra, All Rights Reserved.