The Blind Spot of Employment Statistics - Educational and Demographic Characteristics of Non-Registered Graduates in the Labor Market Administration System

 The aim of the paper is to identify and describe background characteristics of non-registered employment among young graduates. As a result of individual level integration of higher educational and labor market administrative databases in the framework of the Hungarian Graduate Career Tracking Program approx. 90 per cent of the population of graduates was identified by statistics as students, employers, self-employed or inactives. The remaining part of graduates can not be found in labor market administrative databases and thus can be considered as “blind spot” of labor market statistics. The research focuses on this non-visible graduate subpopulation examining its demographic and educational patterns in order to create profiles for non-registered clusters.

In our interpretation behind this blind spot three current tendencies could be considered:

1. The development of the informal sector or shadow economy offers non-registered employment for graduates. (i.e. Hypotheses of informal sector employment)

1. The delayed transition period from school to work has led to postponed employment among young graduates. (i.e. Hypotheses of youth in transition)

1. The growing mobility trend of employment abroad increased the proportion of non-registered graduates in national labor market statistics (i.e. Hypotheses of international employment mobility)

During the investigation, we strive to identify underlying demographic and educational/structural dimensions in the interpretation of these trends. As a result of the research several graduate clusters will be characterized to describe the background determinants of non-registered employment. The characteristics of these groups can be further enriched reflecting on survey data on the same population.