Exploratory Factor Analysis of Congolese Information Technology Graduates’ Employability: Towards Sustainable Employment

Abstract

High unemployment rates in many developing countries have prompted research to focus on sustainability and inclusiveness of employment in line with the sustainable development goal target 8.6. The democratic republic of Congo (DRC) in sub-Saharan Africa experiences one of the highest youth unemployment rates owing to its long-term socio-political and economic instability. Qualitative and quantitative research studies have linked low employability of university-educated youth in the DRC to tribalism, corruption, and insecurity. The current study sought to identify contextual factors that predict employability of information technology (IT) graduates in the DRC. The study surveyed 355 graduates (274 male, 81 female) using 43 questionnaire. Bartlett test was 3,930.05 for Chi2 ( p-value = .000) and KMO test scored 0.68. McDonald’s Omega test of reliability of the instrument scored 0.77 with a total cumulative variance of 72.02%. Results of this study advance the conflict theory by pinpointing the true factors which influence the employability of IT graduates in unstable developing countries. This study has discovered that socio-political background of graduates, graduate academic competencies, graduate-employer relationship, and university employability strategies are the contextual factors that predict the employability of IT graduates in the DRC. The Cronbach’s Alpha test of reliability for the retained contextual factors scored .78, .75, .63, and .53, respectively.