College Grad Job Outlook Still Rosy
Hiring and starting salaries overall are both up for the Class of 2008, according to a recent survey. It's a candidate's market, experts say, but the prospects are less optimistic for students aiming for jobs in the financial sector.
By Marlene Prost
Despite a sagging economy, members of the Class of 2008 are being heavily recruited by U.S. companies getting ready to replace retiring baby boomers over the next 10years.
Job prospects for this year's college graduates are up 8 percent over last year,according to the JobOutlook 2008 Spring Update, released this week by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which monitors the college job market.
Technical fields, especially computer science and engineering, are the most promising professions for this year's grads. On the other hand, business and finance job opportunities have been knocked flat by the negative economy: Hiring is down 7percent in the financial sector, which includes banking, insurance and real estate.
No surprises here -- the economy was expected to affect new hiring, says EdwinKoc, NACE's director of strategic and foundation research. "Overall, theimpact [of the economic uncertainty] has been relatively small. ... It's a verygood time to be a college graduate. Demographics are very strongly in their favor."
The college-hiring picture looked even better last September, when employers told NACE they expected to hire 16 percent more college graduates this year. Many companies, in fact, did their college hiring last fall, and fewer than 1percent plan to rescind those job offers now.
This is the best college hiring market since the dot.com boom ended in 2001, says Mark Mehler of Career CrossXroads, a staffing strategy and consulting firm inKendall Park, N.J. "It's very good to be a college graduate this year. ...With the population shift, the baby boomers are starting to retire, and skilled workers are not as plentiful as in the past, so companies are ramping up college hiring. They're looking to their long term needs."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of workers ages 55 and older is expected to increase by 50 percent in the next 10 years.
Companies are aggressively recruiting college-educated, Generation Y workers before the much-anticipated mass retirements of baby boomers. "Employers don't want to replace [them] with completely inexperienced workers. They want to build experience in the pipeline," Koc says.
"It's more of a candidate market than 2003-2004," concurs Lynne Sebille-White,senior assistant director of employer relations with The Career Center of theUniversity of Michigan. "Students have more options. [Top] students can bein demand; there is some competition between organizations that want to be the employer of choice."
Starting salaries for college grads reflect the high demand. The average starting salary for a 2008 graduate with a bachelor's degree went up 4 percent over the pastyear, according to NACE's winter Salary Survey.
Industries most interested in college graduates are engineering services, accounting firms, consultants, financial services, retail and petroleum productscompanies, according to NACE.
Not surprisingly, the highest salaries and biggest increases are commanded by grads with technical degrees.
The average job offer for computer science majors jumped 7.9 percent, from $52,738 to $56,336. Engineering majors in general had a 5.7 percent increase, for anaverage offer of $56,336; the biggest increase was for chemical engineers,whose job offers went up 6.2 percent, to $63,749.
Business administration and management majors have not fared as well: Their starting salaries rose less than 1 percent, to $43,823. The average job offer for accounting and finance majors went up only 1.9 percent, to $47,413 and $48,795 respectively.
Marketing majors, on the other hand, enjoyed an increase of 5.2 percent, with an average salary offer to $43,459. The average starting salary for liberal arts graduates in general was up 9 percent, to an average of $33,258.
"In general, the hiring outlook remains positive, and many seniors have already received job offers," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE's executive director.
For grads "just entering the job market, [they] will likely find fewer opportunities than originally anticipated," she says, noting that"graduates who were focused on particular industries, such as finance, may need to adjust their target industries."
The JobOutlook 2008 Spring Update is the last in a series of three surveys conducted in 2007-2008 byNACE, based in Bethlehem, Pa. A total of 214 employers participated in this survey: 47 percent in the service sector, 45 percent in manufacturing, and 9percent in government and nonprofits (the percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding).
For more articles on the job market go to www.hreonline.com
March 25,2008
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