With less than a month until graduation, the class of 2008 is facing both good news and bad news.
A recent survey of employers and students conducted by MonsterTRAK, a division of Monster.com, found that only 59 percent of employers plan to hire this year’s graduates in the spring and summer, compared to the 76 percent of employers surveyed last year, due to the nation’s economical slump.
While this is a discouraging statistic for those seniors still on the job hunt, it may be inspiring to hear that last year’s average starting salary of $36,000 for graduates has been raised to $39,500 this year, according to MonsterTRAK.
Survey results found by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) were similar to those of MonsterTRAK.
According to Gretchen Tosh, assistant director of the Career Planning Center, the spring 2008 issue of NACE’s Salary Survey shows that average starting salary offers to 2007-2008 graduates are on the rise.
“Indeed the current recession is likely to have a negative impact on the employment opportunities of ’08 graduates,” said James Buss, an economics professor, “but I would imagine the employment rates will vary greatly by major.”
While the Career Planning Center has not collected any salary data for the class of 2008 yet, Tosh provided the following breakdown of starting-salary statistics for the class of 2007. The average salary, not including bonuses, was $49,586. Healthcare majors averaged at $53,692, accounting at $52,722, science/research/technology at $50,230, consulting at $51,333, insurance at $45,000 and marketing/communications majors at $42,703.
Many seniors agree that students with certain majors have a greater likelihood of being hired sooner rather than later. Craig Cherpock ’08, an accounting major, said he thinks it is easier for students in the business school to get job offers earlier because their studies focus on an exact career.
“Most jobs are lined up after summer internships from junior year,” he said, “so there is less worry and pressure the entire senior year.”
This is not the first time graduates have experienced difficulty in searching for employment, along with the rest of the nation.
“The recessions in both 1991-92 and in 2000-2001 saw rather high unemployment rates for ‘white collar’ workers rather than just ‘blue collar’ employees,” Buss pointed out.
The last recession, according to Buss, which he stated was “a rather mild one,” had the slowest recovery of any of the ten post-World War II recessions, so “this does not bode well for the ’08 grads.”
“A key factor will be the response of the federal government to the situation,” he said. “The tax rebate program is about to begin but many economists think it is too small and too late.”
Tyson Tortora ’08, a finance major, agrees that “with the market in a slight recession, companies are obviously going to hire less students, but they still need the highest caliber students to be the face of the future.”
For some students, especially in the College of Arts and Sciences, the lines of work associated with their majors are more ambiguous than those in the business school. Many of these students, such as Lauren Tuthill ’08, a sociology major, are looking towards graduate school to refine their area of expertise.
“The job boards are so unreliable right now, it seems you either need connections or you have to go on to grad school to even have a chance,” she said.
The Career Planning Center is planning to collect data from the current senior class sometime in the coming weeks, but Tosh does not expect “too much change from last year’s reports.”
As far as how kind the job market will definitively be for the class of 2008, as Buss said, “time will tell.”
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