We Have Mixed Feelings: It's Taking Graduates Longer to Get Employed, But They're Getting Paid More

The stats are out on graduate employment and they're surprisingly not soul-crushing?

There's no need to birdbox yourself over your post-university prospects, because a new report has revealed that graduate employment outcomes aren't actually as dire as they might seem.

Every year, the Department of Education and Teaching release a Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) report showing the truth behind graduate employment; something we can use to see if all that university debt we're racking up really will pay itself off.

The latest report has been released and there's a lot of new revelations to work through, so we're going to break it down the best way we know how.

How long is it taking for graduates to get employed?

Looking at 2015 graduates, the report showed that 67.1 per cent of them had been employed within four months of graduating. By 2018, three years later, 89.2 per cent of those same graduates were in full-time employment.

Overall, that's down slightly from the previous cohort's figures (AKA 2014 graduates), but the actual portion of graduates employed within three years of graduating had increased.

Despite a big push from the government to get more young people into STEM, the report showed that, three years after graduation, science and mathematics graduates had the lowest employment percentage at 87.3 per cent. In contrast, dentistry had the highest full-time employment outcome for graduates at 96.9 per cent.

What are graduates getting paid?

It's not all sighs and tears for new grads, and the salary prospects should make up for it.

In 2015, the cohort of graduates were receiving an average short-term salary of $56,700. The report refers to this period (the very start of your career) as your 'short-term salary' because they assume it's only going to get better. By 2018, those same graduates had increased to an average 'medium-term salary' ('medium-term' because you're a bit more established in your career) of $70,000. That's an increase of about $600 over the previous cohort's salary after three years. Sweet.

Which graduates are getting the best pay rises?

The question you're all probably thinking: What are the best fields for graduates to get into if they want that money and stat? Asking for a friend, of course.

Well, look no further than pharmacy.

The study showed pharmacy graduates raked in a 78 per cent pay increase (or about $32,800) over the first three years of their career, but they also experienced the lowest short-term salary of $42,300.

In contrast, graduate dentists had the highest short-term salary of $86,500.

On the other end of that scale were graduate teachers, who had the slowest growth in salaries three years after graduation, at around $9,000. 

Is gender really a factor in how much you get paid?

Yes, yes it is.

The average earnings of male graduates are higher in all fields overall (except in the fields of agriculture and engineering) but even when you compare graduate earnings by gender within the same field, men are still making more bucks.

In 2015, male graduates in full-time employment were earning around $60,000 while females averaged around $55,000. Three years later, those same male graduates were earning about $73,100 while females were on $68,000. The disparity actually increased by $100 over those three years.

While the results are slightly more uplifting than previous years, we've still got a way to go. Good luck out there, it's a mad world.

Header Image: iStock.com/petekarici