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.

BUSINESS CLUSTER SEES BIGGEST INCREASE

The health sciences, information and digital technologies, and business clusters had the highest full-time permanent employment rates, while all clusters recorded higher median gross monthly salaries for those in full-time permanent employment in 2024.

The median salary for the business cluster saw the largest increase, with the figure for the sector rising from S$4,150 in 2023 to S$4,400 in 2024.

On the other hand, those in the arts, design and media cluster logged a marginal rise in their median salaries - the S$60 increase to S$3,800 in 2024 was the lowest among all the clusters. 

A follow-up survey, which polled over 700 graduates in courses that typically require post-graduate practical training before they can begin their professional practice, found that such graduates were employed at similar rates when compared to data from the year before.

The respondents of the survey were from the architecture class of 2021 and 2023 graduates who studied biomedical sciences and Chinese medicine, law, medicine and pharmacy. 

The survey found that, of those in the labour force, 97.2 per cent were employed after the completion of their practical training, housemanships or first-year residency training, a figure similar to the one reported in 2023.

But there was a dip in those who secured a full-time job, with the figure falling to 94.4 per cent in 2024. Another 0.7 per cent were freelancing, which was also a slight increase compared to the year before.