More fresh graduates found permanent full-time jobs in 2021; sharp fall in part-time, temporary employment
SINGAPORE: The proportion of university graduates who found permanent full-time employment six months after their final exams rose to 84 per cent in 2021 from 69.8 per cent the year before.
This is according to the annual Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey released on Wednesday (Feb 16).
Full-time employment rates of the 2021 cohort are “comparable to pre-COVID-19 levels”, the survey found. In 2019, the full-time permanent employment rate for fresh graduates was 81.7 per cent.
The proportion of graduates in part-time or temporary employment fell to 8.7 per cent, compared to 22.3 per cent in 2020.
About 1.7 per cent found freelance work, a slight increase from the 1.5 per cent in 2020.
The latest survey polled 11,200 fresh graduates from full-time programmes at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS).
The other two autonomous universities are Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).
“The six autonomous universities (AU) have continued with efforts to support their graduates amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” they said in a joint press release.
“On top of providing extensive career guidance and support which includes job matching, personalised career coaching and planning, the AUs have also tapped on their network of industry partners to curate suitable job placement and apprenticeship opportunities for graduates.”
SALARY INCREASE
The median gross monthly salary among fresh graduates in permanent full-time jobs rose to S$3,800 compared to S$3,700 in 2020.
The increase was across most clusters, including arts, design and media, business, health sciences, as well as information and digital technologies.
EMPLOYMENT AFTER POST-GRADUATE TRAINING
A survey was also conducted for graduates from NUS, NTU, SMU, SUSS who went through post-graduate practical training before entering their professions.
The 800 graduates who participated in the survey were from the Architecture Class of 2018, as well as those in Biomedical Sciences and Chinese Medicine, Law, Medicine and Pharmacy who finished their first year of training upon graduation in 2020.
Of those employed, 98.1 per cent had jobs after completing their training last year, an increase from 96.8 per cent in 2020, the survey showed.
Those who had permanent full-time jobs made up 96 per cent, a rise from 93.5 per cent in 2020. Another 0.3 per cent were freelancing, similar to that of the previous year.
The proportion of those in part-time or temporary employment dropped to 1.8 per cent from 3.0 per cent in 2020. Graduates under the SGUnited Traineeship Programme made up 0.6 percentage points of this figure, down from 2020’s 1.3 percentage points, the universities said.
About 0.4 per cent of graduates surveyed said they were in involuntary part-time or temporary employment.
The median gross monthly salary of those who found permanent full-time jobs in this group climbed to S$5,000 in 2021 from S$4,625 in 2020.
The surveys for SUTD and SIT are ongoing and will be released at a later date.
