SINGAPORE: More graduates remained jobless six months after leaving school, though median salaries went up last year, especially for business jobs, a survey found.
Of the 12,500 fresh graduates in the labour force polled in the 2024 Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey released on Monday (Feb 24), 87.1 per cent were employed within six months of completing their final exams, dropping from 89.6 per cent in 2023.
This continues a downward trend since 2022, according to results of the annual survey.
However, the median gross salary among fresh graduates rose in 2024, increasing by 4.2 per cent to S$4,500 (US$3,376) compared to S$4,317 the previous year.
Among those who found employment in 2024, 79.5 per cent secured a full-time job, a decline from 84.1 per cent the year before. Freelancers, meanwhile, accounted for 1.6 per cent of those in the labour force, up from 1.5 per cent in 2023.
The proportion of graduates in part-time or temporary employment also rose to 6 per cent from 4 per cent in 2023. About 2.2 per cent of all respondents were in involuntary part-time or temporary employment, an increase from 1.1 per cent in 2023.
Of the remaining respondents in the labour force, 4.4 per cent were unemployed but starting work or a business venture soon, while 8.5 per cent were unemployed and still looking for work.
The survey was conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Singapore Management University (SMU), the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).
The Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) will release the results of its own survey separately at a later date.
