This Issues Paper focuses on understanding the supply,demand, development and deployment of graduateskills. Successive governments across the UK havesought to expand higher education. The assumption isthat this wave of graduates will be used differently in theworkplace, in turn pushing firms up the value chain,thereby creating a high skill, high valued-addedeconomy. While policymakers have not questioned theimportance of graduate skills, more recently there hasbeen at least some recognition that demand matters aswell as supply. However policy thinking is not helped bythe differing academic accounts of the impact ofgraduate labour. This Issues Paper sets out thelimitations offered by these differing accounts andargues that they highlight the methodological andconceptual limitations of current research of graduatelabour. These limitations are obstacles that need to beovercome to improve both academic understanding andgovernment policy thinking about the impact ofgraduates in the workplace.
