This research aims to study the level of the technical and employability skills of mechanical engineering students of vocational high school (4 and 3 years VHS) in Indonesia. The study applies non experimental quantitative research design, Questionnaire was used to collect data. The population of the study is class XII student with expertise in Mechanical Engineering at VHS in Makassar and Surabaya cities. The total number of the population is 290 students; the sample is 158 students obtained with proportional random sampling. Instrument of data collection was a questionnaire consisting of employability skills and technical skills. The data result of the research is analysed using quantitative description. The result shows that for both technical and employability skills, the mechanical engineering students running 4 years VHS program are better than the students doing 3 years VHS program in Indonesia. Regarding the level of technical skills of the students, those doing 3 years VHS program are at lower level while those doing 4 years VHS are at high level. For the employability skills, 3 years VHS students are categorized as low while the 4 years VHS students are categorized as high.

Keywords: Key words: technical skills, employability skills, 4 years VHS, 3 years VHS.