SINGAPORE – Private universities here have seen a marked improvement in employment figures for their latest cohorts, with around three in five finding full-time jobs within six months of graduating in 2022.
But they continue to lag behind their peers from autonomous universities, including in the size of their pay packets.
The latest edition of the Private Education Institution Graduate Employment Survey, released by SkillsFuture Singapore on Tuesday, showed that 60.9 per cent of fresh graduates from private institutions secured full-time permanent jobs, compared with 46.4 per cent for the 2021 cohort.
When adding those who found part-time work or were freelancing, the figure was 86.5 per cent for 2022’s graduates, compared with 85.3 per cent for the previous batch.
The median gross monthly pay for the 2022 cohort in full-time positions was $3,200 – with graduates from Parkway College of Nursing and Allied Health earning the most at $4,135.
At the other end of the scale were graduates from Curtin Education Centre, who received a median gross monthly pay of $2,950.
Fresh graduates from autonomous universities, such as Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore, started with a median monthly salary of $4,200, according to the autonomous university employment survey for the 2022 batch released on Feb 20.
About 87.5 per cent landed full-time jobs within six months, while 93.8 per cent found some sort of work.
Post-national service polytechnic graduates, meanwhile, started with a median monthly salary of $2,800.
According to the polytechnic survey for the 2022 batch, 92.7 per cent also found work and 65.4 per cent landed full-time jobs six months after graduating.
For 2022’s graduates from private institutions, 17.2 per cent failed to find a job within six months, or were in involuntary part-time or temporary employment. The figure is 4.4 per cent for those who graduated from autonomous universities and 6.1 per cent for post-NS polytechnic graduates.
The survey released on Tuesday focused on employment outcomes of about 2,400 economically active graduates from full-time bachelor’s-level external degree programmes.
This batch came from 27 private institutions such as the Singapore Institute of Management and PSB Academy, and graduated between May 2021 and April 2022.
Correction note: An earlier version of a table in this story stated that the number of economically active fresh graduate respondents from the Singapore Institute of Management is 2. It should be 1,722. We are sorry for the error.
