Every year, hundreds of thousands of applicants are faced with a difficult choice. Choosing a specialty, they choose the content and style of their life, its opportunities, limitations and risks. At the same time, the choice of youth is not only the choice of the trajectory of their future. It is also a far-reaching influence on national processes – on social stability, technological progress and economic development of the country. The choice of today’s graduates will ultimately determine which political path the state will take, which sectors of the economy will be prioritized, and how balanced the demand/supply in the labor market will be. These are the objective consequences of the annual selection of seventeen-year-olds. Do they realize how it will respond in terms of years and decades? Hardly, because the majority of applicants make their choice spontaneously, guided by the attractiveness of professional trends, the fashion for certain educational institutions, or responding to the aggressive marketing of higher education institutions.
Let’s turn to statistics.
According to information system data Vstup.ua, in 2023, the largest number of entrants submitted applications for the specialty “Law” (57,572 applications), “Psychology” (46,857), “Philology” (43,970), “Computer Science” (43,894) and “Management” ( 43,509).
As for vacancies with single portal of the State Employment Service, then they are quite limited. The search for offers in the specialty “Lawyer” shows 1,245 vacancies with salaries ranging from UAH 5,686 (Kropivnytskyi) to UAH 150,000 (Kyiv). There are even fewer vacancies for psychologists – 806. The salary range here is much more modest – from UAH 3,375 (Zdovbytsia) to UAH 55,000 (Dnipro). There are currently only 3 offers for philologists in the register. At the same time, the proposed salary leaves much to be desired: from UAH 9,500 (Netishyn) to UAH 11,750 (Dnipro).
In the field of IT, we find 6227 vacancies. Among them – system administrator, information security specialist, link builder, 1C programmer, information systems specialist, etc. It is difficult to establish a salary range, because the vast majority of vacancies announce a contractual salary.
Today we find 24,194 vacancies in the “Management” specialty. The fields of application of the diploma are diverse: sales, advertising, retail trade, lending, supply, transport. The salary ranges from UAH 7,100 (Irpin) to UAH 100,000 (Kyiv).
It is significant that applicants’ ideas about prestigious specialties do not change despite the reality of a full-scale war. The top 5 by the number of submitted applications in 2022 were the same specialties.
- Law – 44 192;
- Computer science – 41,508;
- Philology – 36,596;
- Management – 35,053;
- Psychology – 34,066.
We observe the same top five in 2021: “law” (57,572 applications), “psychology” (46,857), “philology” (43,970), “computer science” (43,894) and “management” (43,509). In 2020, instead of psychology, which was not yet popular at the time, we see the specialty “Secondary education” in the top, the rest of the specialties remain unchanged. The same top list is presented in the “pre-Vid” year 2019.
What does the constancy of applicants’ preferences indicate? About the fact that stereotypes of prestigious professions influence the choice of graduates who are not inclined to analyze trends in the labor market. About the fact that there is no proper career guidance work among high school students. About the fact that there is no interaction between educational institutions and employers. All this causes an imbalance in the labor market and a shortage of personnel in certain sectors of the economy.
“Employers and education should “hold hands”… Businesses should say what kind of knowledge, skills and competences they need – educational institutions should prepare these specialists. Otherwise, we have a qualification hole.” – the head notes in this regard National Agency of Qualifications Yuri Balanyuk.
Today, the labor market needs such professions as engineers, builders, agronomists, etc. These are the specialties that the country needs to eliminate the consequences of the destruction caused by the war and to develop agriculture. There is a lack of a labor market and workers. “Even if we retrain people, there will still be a shortage of labor, and it will be necessary to do something about it: either to change the structure of the economy, or to attract migrants, or to increase labor efficiency.”, – says Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Quality of Life Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The introductory campaign – 2024 will start soon. How it will affect the balance between supply and demand on the labor market is still an open question.
