Graduate jobs bounced back after Covid, new official survey shows

Things have picked up for the Covid generation of university graduates who are now more likely to have a job than pre-pandemic graduate cohorts.

Students who graduated into difficult job conditions during Covid are now back on track.

Graduates who had a tough time finding a job in the Covid-affected job market of 2020 have made up ground and in 2023 had the highest employment rate in recent years for graduates three years into their career, according to new government figures.

Large scale surveys of graduates, conducted annually, found only 70.3 per cent of those recently completing their courses landed a full-time job in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. But three years later, in 2023, this same cohort had a full-time employment rate of 91.7 per cent, higher than the rate for three-year graduates before the pandemic struck.

The figures also show a substantial salary boost for graduates in the first three years of their career. Graduates from bachelor degrees who earned a median salary of $65,000 in 2020 in their first job earned $83,500 in 2023. Masters by coursework graduates who earned $88,700 in 2020 when they completed their course, earned $108,000 by 2023.

The data, part of the government’s longitudinal graduate outcomes survey which will be published on Thursday, is based on responses from more than 40,000 graduates who reported their employment status and salary in 2020 and 2023.

The survey is part of the government’s Quality Indicators in Learning and Teaching dataset.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare, who will soon release the Universities Accord higher education review which is expected to recommend a higher proportion of young people should get a university degree, said the new survey showed “going to ­university opens up opportunities and makes you money”.

“In the years ahead, more and more jobs will require a university qualification,” he said. “These results show the value of higher education and the benefits that come from giving more Australians a crack at going to uni.”

Employment surveys of graduates three years after they complete their degrees are regarded as a better indicator of how well university courses prepare a student for the workforce, compared to surveys that are taken just a few months after graduation.

According to the new longitudinal survey, the socio-economic status of students makes a small but clear difference to employment outcomes three years after they graduate.

High SES graduates had a full-time employment rate of 92.4 per cent (with a median salary of $85,000) compared to low SES graduates at 90.7 per cent (with a median salary of $82,000).

Students who were first in their family to go to university had a full-time employment rate of 87.7 per cent (with a median salary of $79,000), compared to students not first in family at 89.5 per cent (with a median salary of $85,800).

However students from regional and remote areas had a full-time employment rate of 92.5 per cent three years after graduation, higher than city graduates (91.5 per cent) who are generally regarded as being more favoured.