A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF UNEMPLOYED GRADUATES IN BHUTAN

Over the past few decades, Bhutan has made remarkable progress in socio-economic development, and the kingdom has been identified by the UN as one of the early achievers of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2018. Yet, Bhutan continues to confront a raft of development challenges. One of the most pressing challenges is in the area of youth unemployment, particularly among school and university leavers. Just as school participation has increased in recent years within the kingdom, so too has the number of unemployed graduates. Remarkably, the high levels of unemployed graduates exist alongside a large number of job openings, mostly in the fields of science and engineering, teaching, business administration and commercial management. These positions are usually filled instead by foreign, tertiary-educated workers. Thus, this research thesis intends to study this labour market paradox of graduate unemployment by mapping the lived experiences of unemployed graduates in Bhutan. It relies on primary data collected through a combination of unstructured face-to-face and semi-structured interviews with three unemployed graduates aged between 19-25 years old. The thesis poses two core research questions: firstly, to what degree is there a systemic skill mismatch and jobs, from the perspective of unemployed graduates, and secondly, what is the role of Bhutan Civil Service Examination (BCSE) in the job search strategy and labour market readiness of graduates. The results of the analysis are presented in a narrative form. The findings of this research study reveal that graduate unemployment issues in Bhutan are shaped by a range of issues including the role of the BCSE, a mismatch in wage expectations, the lack of entrenched labour market institutions, and the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of graduates.