Students and job-hunting graduates should take heart from a new report that predicts that graduate employment is about to turn a corner as the labour market recovers from recession, and will then gradually improve, returning to pre-recession levels within the next three years.
The report, What do graduates do?, published by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) and the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS), sets out the impact of the recession on graduate recruitment, but suggests that the outlook is brightening.
The report explains that historically unemployment reaches its peak after the economy has emerged from recession, and then falls away over a number of years. Graduate unemployment is subject to the same trend, and has risen from 7.9% for 2008 graduates six months after finishing their studies to 8.9% for 2009 graduates.
HESCU’s deputy director of research Charlie Ball commented on the HECSU blog that graduate unemployment was likely to have peaked, and had not risen as sharply as feared. He commented, ‘Even in the worst recession many of us have ever experienced, the large majority of graduates got jobs, and fewer than one in eleven were unemployed six months after leaving.’
The percentage of graduates who were in jobs six months after graduation fell from 61.4% for 2008 graduates to 59.2% for 2009 graduates. Of the graduates who were in work, the proportion employed in business or financial services fell to 6.5%, while the proportion working as health, social and welfare professionals rose to 14.8%. The report points out, however, that forthcoming government funding cuts may have an effect on future graduate employment in the public sector.
The percentage of graduates going on to postgraduate study rose sharply from 6.6% in 2008 to 9.1% in 2009. This option was most popular for science graduates.
Salary levels for graduates rose slightly from £19,677 in 2008 to £19,695 in 2009, with graduates in London reporting a higher than average salary of £22,228. The highest starting salaries reported were for protective service officers, such as officers in the armed forces, who earned on average £26,013. By subject area, Chinese studies graduates commanded the highest pay, at £24,450.
Posted by Alison_TARGETjobs on 2 November 2010
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