Navigating Expectations and Realities: A Phenomenological Study of Graduate Unemployment in Alfred Duma Municipality, South Africa

In South Africa, graduate unemployment is a growing problem. This paper explores graduates' expectations when they leave universities versus what they encounter in the labour market and how they manage and react to it. The paper uses a qualitative, phenomenological design on a purposively drawn sample of 24 South African graduates from the Alfred Duma Local Municipality. Data were analysed using thematic analysis on Atlas.ti. The paper further applies a working hypothesis approach to draw testable hypotheses from the data. The study made the following thematic findings: Theme 1: Unemployed ADLM Graduates’ Disillusionment with Employment Transitions; Theme 2: Perceived Sources of Graduates’ Unmet Expectations; and Theme 3: The Sociopsychological Impact of Graduate Unemployment on Youths. In an integrated form, the themes show that graduates managed expectations versus reality gaps (further complicated by community expectations) by altering expectations. Still, failures to reconcile expectations versus realities came with psychological adversities among some. The paper advocates for individual psychological capital development and realistic expectations set by universities, alongside macro-level policy reforms like mandated internships, entrepreneurship and retraining grants, and unemployment benefits. The study proposes a working hypothesis model on how graduates can actively manage their job expectation-reality gap. This is key for future research, offering a testable model to predict graduate responses and inform interventions for unemployment.