Quality of Employment of High School Graduates: Focusing on the Effect of Student Vocational Education and Training Experience

ABSTRACT This study aims to identify latent employment quality patterns among vocational high school graduates and examine how these patterns are influenced by their upper‐secondary vocational education and training (VET) experiences. Grounded in the International Labour Organisation's concept of decent work, this study considers employment quality within diverse indicators: job relevance to education, decent hours, social protection, employment status, adequate earnings, work–life balance, and social dialogue and workplace relations. Using nationally representative data from 1463 Korean vocational high school graduate workers, latent class analysis is employed to classify individuals into distinct employment quality patterns based on multiple dimensions of decent work. The analysis reveals three latent groups: stable (26.7%), partially stable (54.8%), and precarious (18.5%). Results from multinomial logistic regression indicate that students' active participation in vocational coursework, acquisition of industry certifications, and work experience are significantly associated with these latent patterns. Moreover, these relationships vary across different occupational programmes, including STEM, business and services, and others tracks. This study underscores the importance of incorporating diverse indicators of employment quality rather than relying on a single metric. It also suggests that VET strategies should be tailored to the unique characteristics of each occupational programme to improve employment outcomes for vocational high school graduates.