Impact of Digital Skills and Competency among Graduates of Social Sciences in the Context of Employability: Evidence from District Central Karachi

Abstract

The study was based on the correlation between the Digital Skill of Social Science graduates with employability opportunity in District Central Karachi. Digital competence is a key factor in employment readiness, workplace adaptability and competitiveness in the modern employment market. Students who have completed their education in social sciences face difficulties in meeting the technology demands of today's employers because they did not have adequate formal training in digital skill development. This study adopted a quantitative cross sectional research design in order to investigate this issue. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 126 social science graduates, which included demographic data, digital skills assessment, and employability-related measures. Collected data were analyzed using the SPSS using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, simple linear regression and independent samples t-test. The reliability testing results indicated that the research instruments had a high internal consistency as evidenced by the value of Cronbach's Alpha for digital skills was 0.942 and for employability was 0.730. The results showed that there was a significant and positive correlation (r = 0.731, p < 0.001) between digital skills and employability. The digital skills also significantly predicted employability, accounting for 53.5% of the variance in employability outcomes (R2 = 0.535, p < 0.001), according to the regression analysis. The study concludes that digital competencies have a significant impact on employability of social science graduates and there is a need to introduce digital skills in non-technical academic courses to improve the employability and competitiveness of the graduates in the changing labor market.