Slight fall in employment rate for local graduates

SINGAPORE — Slightly fewer graduates from the three local varsities last year are landing jobs or managing to do so as quickly, although they are getting paid better.

A poll of more than 10,000 graduates revealed that the overall employment rate dropped to 89.1 per cent for last year’s graduates, versus 89.3 per cent in 2013.

Also, fewer found full-time jobs within six months of completing their final examinations, continuing a slide from 2012; 82.7 per cent managed it last year, compared with 85.6 per cent three years ago.

However, the average monthly salaries inched up more than 3 per cent to S$3,333. The median starting pay of S$3,200 last year is also 5 per cent higher than it was in the past two years.

These statistics emerged from the latest Joint Graduate Employment Survey released yesterday, which involved 10,126 graduates last year from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Singapore Management University (SMU). This was the third such survey, which is jointly conducted by the three institutions.

The overall employment rate among NUS graduates last year was 89 per cent, unchanged over the past two years. There was also full employment for fresh graduates from Accountancy (Hons) programme, as well as dentistry, nursing and medicine graduates who have completed their housemanship, said the NUS.

At NTU, nine of 10 graduates last year found jobs within six months of completing their final examinations, a proportion similar to that in 2013.

The SMU said the mean gross monthly salary of their graduates in full-time permanent jobs was a record S$3,592 since its pioneer cohort graduated in 2004.

NTU said its graduates’ overall mean gross monthly salary improved by 2.7 per cent, from S$3,187 in 2013 to S$3,272 last year.

Based on mean gross salaries, the top earners last year were from the accountancy and business, aerospace engineering as well as computer engineering programmes.

Meanwhile, the three universities also conducted a separate survey of 638 graduates who graduated either in 2011 or 2013, but had to serve their housemanship, practical training or pupilage.

These graduates are from the architecture, biomedical science (traditional Chinese medicine), law, medicine and pharmacy courses.

Last year, almost all of these graduates (98.9 per cent) were employed — the highest in three years — with 97.7 per cent of them holding full-time permanent jobs. In 2013, the overall employment rate of this group was 98.3 per cent, compared with 98.6 per cent in 2012.

The mean gross monthly salary among graduates who had full-time positions last year was S$4,800, as compared with S$4,500 in 2013.