Graduates earn over €33k in first year of work
Third-level graduates stand both the best chance of securing a job and the highest starting salary, with 94% of the class of 2017 in employment or due to start a job within nine months of leaving college.
Arts and humanities graduates, however, have the lowest starting salaries and the lowest employment numbers.
The findings are contained in the Graduate Outcomes Survey carried out by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), which is the most detailed and comprehensive study on life after third-level education ever carried out in Ireland with 30,000 people with undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications surveyed.
Health and welfare graduates fare well, with 88% in employment or due to start a job, followed by ICT graduates (82%), engineering, manufacturing, and construction graduates (82%), business, administration, and law graduates (79%), graduates in services including tourism and hospitality (80%), agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and veterinary graduates (74%), social sciences and journalism graduates (72%), natural sciences, maths, and statistics graduates (67%), and arts and humanities graduates (63%).
The lower employment figures for arts and science graduates are linked to higher rates of postgraduate study in these disciplines with, respectively, 24% and 25% moving on to further study.
The survey found that 78% of all graduates, including levels six, seven, eight, and postgraduates at levels nine and 10, were in employment or due to start a job within nine months of leaving college, with 14% engaged in further study and 5% looking for work.
However, whereas 67% of honours graduates were working full-time, 86%of those with a postgraduate diploma, 78% with a taught masters, and 84% with a research degree were in full-time work.
The survey found that third-level graduates are increasingly staying in Ireland rather than moving abroad, with 90% of all jobs secured by the class of 2017 based in Ireland.
Dublin is sucking up the majority of new graduates, with 43% of graduates based in the capital compared to 14% in Cork, 7% in Galway, and 6% in Limerick.
The average full-time starting salary for 2017’s third-level graduates is €33,574 although this varies significantly by sector, region, and degree type.
Salaries in Dublin are, on average, €34,153 compared to €33,437 in the south-west. University graduates earn an average of €34,759 within their first year of work whereas those who graduate from institutes of technology earn €31,998.
Overall, 75% of honours degree graduates are working or due to start a job, 18% are in further studies or training, 4% are unemployed, and 3% are engaged in another activity such as overseas travel.
The latest survey follows on from the previous HEA First Destinations report but, as it uses a significantly different method to collect the data, cannot be directly compared.
However, it does show that there are higher employment and lower unemployment rates than at any time since the downturn.
The figures are in line with the most recent migration data from the Central Statistics Office, which shows that the number of people emigrating fell from 64,800 in the year ending April 2017 (1.35% of the population) to 56,300 in the year ending April 2018 (1.16% of the population).
Employment rose by 1.2% in 2017. Overall, graduates with a third-level education are twice as likely to be employed as those without a formal education, and three times less likely to be unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Government will today announce ambitious targets to train more than 47,000 graduates in high-level ICT skills by 2022.
With an increasing number of multinationals now based in Ireland, it is expected that there will be 18,000 high-level ICT job openings a year by 2022.
Education Minister Joe McHugh and Business Minister Heather Humphreys will today announce plans which include reskilling people from diverse backgrounds and providing high-level ICT apprenticeships.
