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Media Release: Graduate Employment, 2005

Graduate Employment Grows

The first results released from the new 2005 Graduate Destination Survey[1] (GDS) show that:

  • new bachelor degree graduates found employment more readily in 2005 than in recent years
  • graduate starting salaries increased by $2000 in 12 months
  • fewer new graduates are unemployed
  • there has been a further narrowing of the gap between males’ and females’ median starting salaries.

The initial national results of the 2005 survey appear in Graduate Careers Australia’s new summary publications, GradStats and The Grad Files. Most notably:

  • there has been a rise in graduate full-time employment, with 80.9 per cent of bachelor degree graduates who wanted full-time work having found it within four months of completing their studies
  • there has been a drop, for the second year in a row, in the percentage of those not working while seeking full-time employment, from 7.4 per cent in 2004 to 6.9 per cent in 2005
  • median starting salaries for all graduates have stayed above 80 per cent of average earnings
  • female graduates’ median salaries are now 97.5 per cent of males’ earnings (up from 92.3 per cent in 2000)
  • the overall median annual starting salary for bachelor degree graduates in their first full-time employment was $40,000 (up from $38,000 last year) and remains stable compared with an annual measure of average weekly earnings
  • the 2005 survey reflects a continued strong level of labour market demand for new graduates after a period of improvement and consolidation between 1999 and 2001.

GradStats is a general summary of the GDS while The Grad Files is aimed at prospective university students and gives an overview of the type of work that newly employed graduates enter.

The Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) is conducted annually in cooperation with all Australian institutions of higher education. The GDS tracks the activities of new university graduates who completed their qualifications in the previous calendar year. In 2005, information from over 110,000 new graduates was analysed for this new report.

Ms Cindy Tilbrook, Executive Director of  GCA said, “Activity in the graduate labour market has been very strong in the last 12 months. This is reflected in our new survey results and I expect this growth to continue. Our recent Graduate Outlook survey showed that over 90 per cent of the graduate recruiters who participated planned to either increase or retain their level of graduate recruitment in 2006.”

The main points from the 2005 GDS are:

  • Of bachelor degree graduates who were available for full-time employment in 2005, 80.9 per cent (79.7 per cent last year) were in full-time employment within four months of completing their degrees. See Table 1a in GradStats.
  • A further 12.3 per cent (12.9 per cent last year) were working on a part-time or casual basis while continuing to seek full-time employment. See Table 1a in GradStats.
  • The remaining 6.9 per cent (7.4 per cent last year) were not working and still looking for full-time employment at the time of the survey. See Table 1a in GradStats.
  • These figures represent an improved level of demand for new graduates after figures levelled out between 2002 and 2004. Further, for two years running there has been a drop in the percentage of those not working while seeking full-time employment.
  • Over one-fifth of respondents, or 22.5 per cent (23.4 per cent last year), were undertaking further full-time study after completing their qualifications. See Table 1 in GradStats.
  • Fields of Education with high proportions in full-time employment at the time of the GDS included Mining Engineering (98.8 per cent), Pre-registration Pharmacy (98.7 per cent), Medicine (98.3 per cent), Initial Nursing Education (96.2 per cent), Civil Engineering (95.7 per cent) and Surveying (95.4 per cent). See Table 2 in GradStats.
  • Respondents in Visual and Performing Arts, Social Sciences, Psychology, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Computer Science and Languages were most likely to have been seeking full-time employment at the time of the GDS. See Table 2 in GradStats.
  • The starting salary for bachelor degree graduates ($40,000) was 81.8 per cent of average earnings, up slightly from 81.6 per cent last year, and down from 82.0 per cent in 2003, and 82.7 per cent in 2004. See Table 3 in GradStats.
  • Males earned a starting salary of $40,000 (up from $39,000 last year) and females earned $39,000 (up from $38,000 last year). See Table 4 in GradStats.
  • At $65,000, Dentistry graduates earned the highest median starting salary. See Tables 4 and 5 in GradStats.
  • The top ranked Fields in terms of starting salary were Dentistry, Optometry, Medicine, Engineering, Education and Mathematics. See Table 5 in GradStats.
  • Overall satisfaction with courses as measured by the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) remains at a high level, with 89.8 per cent of graduates expressing broad satisfaction with their courses. See Figure 3 in GradStats.

Ms Tilbrook said, “University graduates have a labour market advantage, as demonstrated by GCA research. In addition, the most recently available Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data (May 2004) show that just 2.9 per cent of those in the general population with bachelor degrees were unemployed.”

GDS employment figures differ from ABS figures in that the GDS separates those in part-time employment from those in full-time employment, while the ABS includes those with any work at all in their ‘employed’ category. Additionally, many new graduates are entering the labour market for the first time while the ABS figures relate to all persons.

Readers can download their own copies of GradStats and The Grad Files (free of charge) by going to www.graduatecareers.com.au.

For further information, please contact Cindy Tilbrook, GCA Executive Director, on (03) 8344 9334 or 0438 988 772 or Bruce Guthrie, GCA Research Manager, on (02) 6367 5347.

[1] These figures have not previously been published in any format.

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