The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Labor Market Perspectives for Management Undergraduates: New Models of Employability Capital Development

Introduction. COVID-19 is a worldwide epidemic that impacts all aspects of human life. Social distancing was an essential action to prevent from COVID-19 virus. For this reason, collective activities were prohibited in many countries including Sri Lanka. Education is one of the main collective activities in the world. As such, it is relevant to test the influence of COVID-19 on graduate employability skills. However, it is difficult to find COVID 19 impact on graduate employability skills in the Sri Lankan context. Aim and tasks. The main objective of this paper was to identify the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the graduate employability capital of state universities’ management undergraduates in Sri Lanka and the significant level of that factor. Results. Based on the literature review, the COVID-19 pandemic affected five factors human capital, identity capital, cultural capital, social capital, and psychological capital identified as graduate employability capital factors or not. The methods of the study were to use the analysis of quantitative data. To achieve this goal, an online survey of 377 university students was conducted. The obtained selective results in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic showed significant positive shifts in the employment processes of university graduates. This positive impact, according to the results of the regression analysis, was provided by the following types of capital: social, human, psychological, cultural, and identity, the values of which ranged from 91.4 percent to 95.8 percent. Among all types of capital, human and psychological capital had the most significant impact on student mobility. Conclusions. The conducted studies show the importance of the online educational system in the universities of Sri Lanka. The use of available resources can significantly improve the existing infrastructure of online education and help increase the level of competence and professionalism of the teaching staff and university students. The introduction of the proposed online educational programs and courses will not only improve the quality of services provided but will also increase the revenue side of the university budget.