Learning Goal Orientation and the Development of Perceived Employability of Young Workers: Does a Higher Education Degree Matter?

The current study probes the relation between learning and employability. First, we investigated the relationship between younger workers’ work-domain learning goal orientation and perceived employability and its development over time. This portrays an agentic view: Effort is expected to open up new opportunities. Second, we explored whether agency is equally strong for everyone by investigating whether having a higher education degree associated with this relationship. Latent growth analyses (N = 792) demonstrated that work-domain learning goal orientation of younger workers only affected the initial value of perceived employability and only for workers without higher education degree. Furthermore, perceived employability of respondents without (vs. with) higher education degree started lower, but they seem to catch up over a 1-year period.