The Changing Nature of the Graduate Labour Market ― Media, Policy and Political Discourses in the Uk

The British graduate labour market attracts much attention from the media as well as in policy circles. The Changing Nature of the Graduate Labour Market: Media, Policy and Political Discourses examines the extent to which these political and media discourses are congruent with the empirical realities. Tholen argues that the assumptions made by many policymakers and media outlets regarding graduate work, skills and occupations are no longer valid within the changing educational and labour market contexts. To demonstrate this, the book traces seven important trends that currently shape the British graduate labour market and reveals that these seven trends and their effects contradict the conceptualisation of the graduate labour market which dominates media and policy discourses.

Gerbrand Tholen is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK. His work focuses on the relationship between higher education and the labour market.