Graduates Employment Status with International Chinese Business Degree’s from the Prince of Songkla University, Phuket Campus

Increasing graduate unemployment is a concern throughout labor markets and societies. According to the World Bank (2014), 11.57% of the total population in East Asia and the Pacific region aged between 15 to 24 years old are unemployed. Similarly, in Thailand there are many educated graduates who are unable to find jobs within their chosen field of study. Two of the major factors contributing to this unemployment are Thailand’s 4.0 digital National Economic and Social Development Plan (2017) which is leading to the automation of jobs using artificial intelligence and robotics, and Thailand’s education system. Nguyen's (2014), states that the Thai education system need to be reconstructed and improved to enhance graduates’ ability to find employment that matches their degrees.

Past studies have shown that young employees who had second language skills were more likely to get better jobs and earn higher wages than employees who only knew one language (Marzban, Yazdfazeli, & Ghodrati, 2014). English is already known as an international language which is used in many labor markets throughout the world. However, Chinese is now seen as a second international language due to China’s increasing openness to trade internationally and growing numbers of Chinese tourists. Therefore, communicating in Chinese is growing in value among the current graduates joining the workforce. One way to help graduates gain employment both inside and outside of Thailand is to enable students to speak more languages in their chosen degree. This would reduce the mismatch between the graduate’s field of study and his or her field of employment.

At the Prince of Songkla University, Phuket campus, (PSU) there are several faculties that are open for students who want to be skillful in the future labor and digital job markets. The Faculty of International Studies (FIS) plays a significant role in developing language and business graduates for national and international employers. FIS is an international learning institution that creates recognized graduates who produce academic research, and preserves arts and culture (FIS PSU Phuket, 2017). One of the major subjects in FIS is International Business China. Students who have graduated from this major have acquired worldwide knowledge and cultural experience in China and are able to use at least three languages, namely, Chinese, English, and Thai. Yet, no study has investigated the types of jobs that International Business China (IBC) graduates currently hold nor has any research been published on the amount of written and/or spoken Chinese being used by graduates in their jobs.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the current employment status of IBC graduates, including the level of Chinese used in their jobs, and to identify the proportion of job mismatch. The benefits of this study will allow future graduates to see the scope of job opportunities available to them; help employers match IBC graduates to their business and language skills; and aid the Faculty of International Studies to develop courses that match the future needs of employers.
A qualitative approach using content analysis was used to investigate the employment rate of IBC graduates. The graduates from IBC 2015 were contacted during November 2016 using a Facebook group page and sent a link to a Google Forms questionnaire. The three main parts of the employment status questionnaire were; 1) what jobs did graduates do; 2) how much salary did they make and; 3) how often did they use written and/or spoken Chinese in their jobs during the day. After that the data was thematically analyzed, coded and categorized by each of the authors. Then the authors’ codes and categories were compared and agreed upon. Finally, the categories were tallied and quantified into percentages using an Excel 2010 spreadsheet.

The results showed that out of 13 respondents, 77% were female and 23% were male. It has been historically observed that FIS attracts more female students to its language degrees. All the IBC respondents were employed with 33% having second jobs. The majority of the IBC respondents were working in sales and marketing type jobs (46.17%) such as sale executive positions and sales operation coordinators. This would be a logical choice for Chinese business graduates as they can apply their marketing, finance and language skills to those jobs. However, the findings reveal a greater range of positions that were aligned to graduates current business and management skills, for example, receptionist (7.69%), assistant banking officer (7.69%) or events coordinator (7.69%). Graduates were also driven by their personal goals such as being a Chinese teacher (7.69%) to impart knowledge or as a translator (7.69%). Alternatively, job satisfaction was a motivating factor for graduates who work as cabin crew staff (7.69%) as they liked to travel or as a tourist information officer (7.69%) because they preferred to serve the public on a daily basis. The largest amount of salary earned per month was 47,500 Thai Baht and the lowest 15,000 Thai Baht. The results show that the salary amounts earned are above average of expected amount for bachelor degree graduates, which is around 15,000 Thai Baht per month in Thailand (Trading Economics, 2017). Eight percent of respondents used written and/or spoken Chinese all day. Meanwhile, 46% used the Chinese language often (4-6 hours), 23% sometimes (1-3 hours), and 23% not often (less than 1 hour) during the day. Interestingly, the sales operations coordinator used Chinese all throughout the day. Then, the events coordinator, translator, cabin crew, and the tour information guide used Chinese often. Next, the Chinese teacher and assistant banking officer used Chinese sometimes. Lastly, the sales executives’ usage of the Chinese language varied from 1 to 6 hours per-day. All of the IBC respondents stated that they utilize their Chinese skills in their jobs. This suggests that most companies prefer to hire graduates with language skills since the majority of tourists that travel to Phuket are Chinese (The Department of Tourism, 2015). Additionally, organizations hiring graduates who speak Chinese may also be looking for employees to use other languages such as English, Russian, Korean or Arabic as tourist demographics are always changing. This leads to the fact that graduates who have strong language skills such as Chinese, Russian, Korean and English are more likely to be employed and do additional jobs. As Phuket is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Thailand, language is a significant tool for daily communication which leads to better employment and higher income.

In conclusion, this study found that IBC 2015 graduates had a high rate of employment with a low level of mismatch between their major field of study and their current employment. In addition, IBC graduates earned an above average national salary. Therefore, IBC graduates are uniquely qualified to utilize their knowledge and skills in various labor markets in Phuket, Thailand, China and beyond. Finally, the authors suggest that a larger sample size be examined to provide a broader and more in-depth understanding of the IBC graduates and their career development within a digital context.