Investigating How Digital Skills (ICT Literacy, Digital Communication Skills, and Technical Skills) Enhance the Employability of Business Graduates in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

As Cambodia accelerates its transition toward a digital economy, employers increasingly expect business graduates to demonstrate work-ready digital competence across routine productivity tools, professional digital communication, and role-relevant technical applications. This study estimates how three digital skill domains including ICT literacy, digital communication skills, and technical digital skills to predict graduate employability in Phnom Penh, and it also quantifies the gap between graduates’ self-assessed skill levels and employer evaluations (Supreme National Economic Council, 2021).

Using a quantitative cross-sectional design, survey data were collected from 391 recent business graduates and 229 employers/hiring managers across multiple sectors. Grounded in Human Capital Theory and extended using skill-biased technological change and labour-market signalling perspectives, the analysis indicates that digital skills jointly explain substantial variation in perceived employability (Autor et al., 1998). ICT literacy emerges as the most consistent predictor, followed by digital communication skills. Technical digital skills show a more complex relationship: they are positively associated with employability at the bivariate level, but their unique regression contribution depends on overlap with other skill domains and the task structure of entry-level roles (Autor et al., 1998).

A statistically significant graduate–employer perception gap is also observed. Contrary to simplistic “digital native” assumptions, employers rate graduates’ digital skills higher than graduates’ rate themselves, indicating under confidence and calibration issues rather than overconfidence (Bennett et al., 2008). Overall, the findings imply that employability gains in Phnom Penh’s current labour market are driven primarily by foundational ICT and professional digital communication competence, supported by applied technical capability embedded in workplace-relevant tasks.