UNE has ranked in the top three performing universities for domestic full-time graduate employment in the 2022 Graduate Outcomes Survey – the measure of employment rates among students who have completed undergraduate or postgraduate degrees.
Last year, some 86.8% of our graduates had secured jobs – a result only rivalled by Charles Sturt University (90.7%) and Central Queensland University (86.9%) – in a result Interim VC Professor Simon Evans has described as extremely pleasing.
“These findings demonstrate the value of a UNE education and how well we prepare our graduates to pursue professional careers,” Professor Evans said.
“We have a high number of part-time students who work full-time while completing their degrees, and the mode of study and study areas offered partly explains the variations in job outcomes between tertiary institutions.
"However, I am particularly proud of the support we offer our students, many of whom are juggling work, family responsibilities and study. Their dedication clearly reaps rewards in the labour market when they graduate."
Last year’s national online survey of 130 higher education institutions included 130,000 recent graduates. It concluded that full-time employment is up from 68.9% in 2021 to 78.5% in 2022. Overall employment rose from 84.8% to 88.3%.
The highest labour force participation rates in 2022 were in the fields of rehabilitation, tourism and hospitality, business and management, nursing, engineering, social work, law and paralegal studies, computing and information systems, and teacher education.
Other interesting survey findings of the 2022 Graduate outcomes Survey included that, nationally:
- employment rates for university graduates were higher than at any other time since 2009;
- the full-time employment rate for First Nations graduates rose from 78.5% to 81.5%;
- graduates from regional and remote areas recorded an employment rate of 83%, compared to 77.6% for graduates from metropolitan areas;
- salaries of female graduates have caught up to male salaries in business and management, and computing and information systems; and exceeded male salaries in the fields of social work, agriculture and environmental studies; and
- the historic gender pay gap prevails overall, with male graduates last year earning a median of $69,400, which is $2000 more than female graduates.
