Both in Canada and around the world, the labour market is constantly changing and requires the maintenance of skills and acquisition of knowledge focused on what is needed with the transformation of industries. These changes affect the behaviour of workers, not only in Canada, but in all developed and emerging countries. School-to-work transitions have become the subject of interest for employers, employees, students and decision-makers. To meet these labour market requirements, many Canadians supplement their post-secondary education with the addition of short-duration credentials, often seen
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Both in Canada and around the world, the labour market is constantly changing and requires the maintenance of skills and acquisition of knowledge focused on what is needed with the transformation of industries. These changes affect the behaviour of workers, not only in Canada, but in all developed and emerging countries. School-to-work transitions have become the subject of interest for employers, employees, students and decision-makers. To meet these labour market requirements, many Canadians supplement their post-secondary education with the addition of short-duration credentials, often seen as a specialization tool. The contribution of short-duration credentials (certificates or diplomas), completed after undergraduate studies, to labour market outcomes is a subject of interest due to their increased popularity and also in terms of aligning skills with labour market needs. However, very few studies have analyzed the impact of short-duration credentials on the career advancement of bachelor's degree holders.
This study uses longitudinal data combining information from the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) with data from personal income tax (T1 Family File) to analyze the impact of short-duration credentials (certificates and diplomas from colleges and universities), completed after an undergraduate degree, on the outcomes on the labour market of graduates from Canadian public universities. This study shows that among the 102,865 graduates who completed an undergraduate degree in 2010 before the age of 25, 5,370 (5.2 per cent) also completed an additional short-duration credential (certificate or diploma) while 66.3 per cent had not completed further educational qualification six years after the bachelor's degree. Although a large proportion of graduates who completed a short-duration credential started with a lower employment income and returned to school full-time, their median employment income two years before and two years after completing a short-duration credential rose faster, almost to the level of those who did not go back to school, in almost all fields of study.
Excerpts from publication and publisher's website.
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