IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausact/v30y2020i3p193-205.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting and Finance Graduate Employment Outcomes: Underemployment, Self‐employment and Managing Diversity

Author

Listed:
  • Denise Jackson

Abstract

The employment landscape for new graduates is increasingly challenging due to rapid changes in automation and globalisation, coupled with softening labour markets arising from economic uncertainty. For accounting and finance, there is the added complexity of a shift away from traditional core responsibilities and evidence of marginalisation among certain groups within the professions. The study used national data (N = 40 141) to examine the employment outcomes of accounting and finance graduates in Australia. Findings indicate weak full‐time, short‐term employment outcomes among graduates with little variation in recent years. High levels of casual working were evidenced and the proportion of self‐employed was relatively low in comparison with the broader workforce and was dominated by male and older graduates. Of those working, 45% were not in graduate‐level employment. There were variations in patterns of employment and underemployment by individual characteristics. The study informs stakeholders of prevalent employment trends and determinants of postgraduation outcomes in accounting and finance graduates, in addition to insights into how these professions are progressing in managing diversity. Implications for stakeholders in relation to improving graduate employment outcomes, as well managing diversity, are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Denise Jackson, 2020. "Accounting and Finance Graduate Employment Outcomes: Underemployment, Self‐employment and Managing Diversity," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 30(3), pages 193-205, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausact:v:30:y:2020:i:3:p:193-205
    DOI: 10.1111/auar.12256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/auar.12256
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/auar.12256?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christelle Laetitia Garrouste & Margarida Rodrigues, 2014. "Employability of young graduates in Europe," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(4), pages 425-447, July.
    2. Guozhen Huang & Carolyn J. Fowler & Rachel F. Baskerville, 2016. "Entering the accounting profession: the operationalization of ethnicity-based discrimination," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 29(8), pages 1342-1366, October.
    3. Samo Pavlin, 2014. "The role of higher education in supporting graduates’ early labour market careers," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(4), pages 576-590, July.
    4. Phil Lewis & Michael Corliss & Anne Daly, 2013. "The Rate of Return to Higher Education Over the Business Cycle," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 16(2), pages 219-236.
    5. Jackson, D, 2016. "Deepening Industry Engagement with International Students Through Work-integrated Learning," Australian Bulletin of Labour, National Institute of Labour Studies, vol. 42(1), pages 38-61.
    6. Mandy Cheng & Helen Kang & Peter Roebuck & Roger Simnett, 2009. "The Employment Landscape for Accounting Graduates and Work Experience Relevance," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 19(4), pages 342-351, December.
    7. Lucie DAVOINE & Christine ERHEL & Mathilde GUERGOAT-LARIVIERE, 2008. "Monitoring quality in work: European Employment Strategy indicators and beyond," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 147(2-3), pages 163-198, June.
    8. Ian W. Li & Paul W. Miller, 2015. "Overeducation and earnings in the Australian graduate labour market: an application of the Vahey model," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 63-83, February.
    9. Iain Campbell & Robin Price, 2016. "Precarious work and precarious workers: Towards an improved conceptualisation," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 27(3), pages 314-332, September.
    10. Carroll, David & Tani, Massimiliano, 2013. "Over-education of recent higher education graduates: New Australian panel evidence," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 207-218.
    11. Lucie Davoine & Christine Erhel & Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, 2008. "Monitoring quality in work: european employment strategy indicators and beyond," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00317347, HAL.
    12. David Carroll & Massimiliano Tani, 2015. "Job search as a determinant of graduate over-education: evidence from Australia," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 631-644, October.
    13. Derek Robert Matthews, 2017. "Accountants and the professional project," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(2), pages 306-327, February.
    14. Sally Chaplin, 2017. "Accounting Education and the Prerequisite Skills of Accounting Graduates: Are Accounting Firms’ Moving the Boundaries?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 27(1), pages 61-70, March.
    15. Jie Hao & Qingsong Liu, 2017. "The Impact of Australian Accounting Education on Repatriates' Career Development," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 27(1), pages 52-60, March.
    16. Edgley, Carla & Sharma, Nina & Anderson-Gough, Fiona, 2016. "Diversity and professionalism in the Big Four firms: Expectation, celebration and weapon in the battle for talent," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 13-34.
    17. James, Kieran & Otsuka, Setsuo, 2009. "Racial biases in recruitment by accounting firms: The case of international Chinese applicants in Australia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 469-491.
    18. Lisa Cullen & Theo Christopher, 2012. "Career Progression of Female Accountants in the State Public Sector," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 22(1), pages 68-85, March.
    19. Haynes, Kathryn, 2017. "Accounting as gendering and gendered: A review of 25 years of critical accounting research on gender," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 110-124.
    20. Francis Green & Golo Henseke, 2016. "Should governments of OECD countries worry about graduate underemployment?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 32(4), pages 514-537.
    21. Lucie Davoine & Christine Erhel & Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, 2008. "Monitoring quality in work: european employment strategy indicators and beyond," Post-Print halshs-00317347, HAL.
    22. Colleen Hayes & Kerry Jacobs, 2017. "The processes of inclusion and exclusion," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(3), pages 565-592, March.
    23. Julia Bredtmann & Sebastian Otten, 2014. "Getting what (employers think) you’re worth," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(3), pages 291-305, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Bradbury & Bryan Howieson, 2020. "Editorial: Evidence on APRA Proposals and Impact of COVID‐19 on Expected Credit Loss Accounting," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 30(3), pages 157-158, September.
    2. Denise Jackson & Julia Richardson & Grant Michelson & Rahat Munir, 2023. "The Future of Accounting Talent: Career Values, Choices and Satisfaction Among Early Career Accountants," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 33(4), pages 391-406, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Drobnič, Sonja & Beham, Barbara & Präg, Patrick, 2018. "Working Conditions in Europe," SocArXiv 493ev, Center for Open Science.
    2. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00566139 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ellalee, Haider & Alali, Walid Y., 2018. "FDI, Industrial Policy and Employment Impacts on Brexit," MPRA Paper 117507, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Oct 2018.
    4. Bruno Palier & Clément Carbonnier & Michaël Zemmour, 2014. "Exonérations ou investissement social ? Une évaluation du coût d'opportunité de la stratégie française pour l'emploi," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01087479, HAL.
    5. DEGUILHEM Thibaud & FRONTENAUD Adrien, 2016. "Quality of employment regimes and diversity of emerging countries," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2016-03, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    6. Tânia FERRARO & Leonor PAIS & Nuno REBELO DOS SANTOS & João Manuel MOREIRA, 2018. "The Decent Work Questionnaire: Development and validation in two samples of knowledge workers," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 157(2), pages 243-265, June.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/18k79jk7138279qstaf2rdulvu is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Andrew E. Clark, 2009. "Work, jobs and well-being across the Millennium," PSE Working Papers halshs-00566139, HAL.
    9. Kaijing Xue & Dingde Xu & Shaoquan Liu, 2019. "Social Network Influences on Non-Agricultural Employment Quality for Part-Time Peasants: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-22, July.
    10. Eduardo Bericat & Eva Sánchez Bermejo, 2016. "Structural Gender Equality in Europe and Its Evolution Over the First Decade of the Twentyfirst Century," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 55-81, May.
    11. Marek Gora & Piotr Lewandowski & Maciej Lis, 2017. "Temporary employment boom in Poland – a job quality vs. quantity trade-off?," IBS Working Papers 04/2017, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    12. Walaa Wahid ElKelish*, 2023. "Accounting for Corporate Human Rights: Literature Review and Future Insights," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 33(2), pages 203-226, June.
    13. Clément Carbonnier & Bruno Palier & Michaël Zemmour, 2016. "Tax cuts or social investment? Evaluating the opportunity cost of French employment strategy," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(6), pages 1687-1705.
    14. Andrei Moroc & Octavian Bărnuțiu, 2019. "Job Quality, Innovation and Employment – a Structural Equation Modeling on Regional Level," International Journal of Innovation and Economic Development, Inovatus Services Ltd., vol. 5(1), pages 54-65, April.
    15. repec:hal:journl:hal-01017683 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Ian W. Li & Mark Harris & Peter J. Sloane, 2018. "Vertical, Horizontal and Residual Skills Mismatch in the Australian Graduate Labour Market," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(306), pages 301-315, September.
    17. Deguilhem, Thibaud & Frontenaud, Adrien, 2016. "Régimes de qualité de l’emploi et diversité des pays émergents," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 19.
    18. Yang, Yanlin & Shao, Xu, 2018. "Understanding industrialization and employment quality changes in China: Development of a qualitative measurement," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 274-281.
    19. Esposito, Piero & Collignon, Stefan & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2019. "Immigration and unemployment in Europe: does the core-periphery dualism matter?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 310, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. María Cascales Mira, 2021. "New Model for Measuring Job Quality: Developing an European Intrinsic Job Quality Index (EIJQI)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(2), pages 625-645, June.
    21. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/18k79jk7138279qstaf2rdulvu is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Esposito, Piero & Collignon, Stefan & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2020. "The effect of immigration on unemployment in Europe: Does the core-periphery dualism matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 249-258.
    23. Agnieszka Piasna & Brendan Burchell & Kirsten Sehnbruch, 2019. "Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 25(2), pages 165-180, May.
    24. José María Arranz & Carlos García-Serrano & Virginia Hernanz, 2018. "Employment Quality: Are There Differences by Types of Contract?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 203-230, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausact:v:30:y:2020:i:3:p:193-205. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1035-6908 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.