In Ethiopia, technical and vocational education and training is predominantly a post-secondary program aimed at producing a competent middle-level workforce. Despite its steady expansion in recent years, both anecdotal and empirical sources criticize it for failing to effectively address the needs of trainees and the labor market. Above all, graduates often face unemployment, regardless of their competence. This study, therefore, aims to explore the underlying factors contributing to the mismatch between graduates’ competence and their wage employment opportunities. In particular, it focuses on participants’ perceptions of the competence of agro-food processing graduates and the reasons behind the inverse association between their competence and wage employment opportunities. The study employed a phenomenological research design, purposefully selecting 83 employed and unemployed graduates, along with 16 training providers and employers. Data were collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Findings revealed that most graduates lacked competence due to a shortage of both human and material resources in training delivery as well as weak cooperative training practices. Additionally, issues such as nepotism, cronyism, and bribery significantly affected competent graduates’ access to wage employment. These corrupt practices also contributed to the observed negative relationship between competence and wage employment opportunities. The combination of poor graduate competence and corrupt employment practices has undermined the utility of the agro-food processing occupation, potentially posing far-reaching implications for the relevance and value of occupational competence and causing obstructive spillover effects across the broader labor market. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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