Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 10 | October 2018 | Seite 18

industry & research
campusreview.com.au
Job outlook bleak
Grads struggling in a post-GFC
world, Grattan Institute says.
Ittima Cherastidtham interviewed
by Loren Smith
D
on’t get entranced by dazzling
headlines: overall, Australian
university graduates are still limping
towards meaningful employment.
“New graduates are still less likely to get
a full-time job than a decade ago,” a new
Grattan report says.
Mapping Australian Higher Education
2018, written by program director of higher
education Andrew Norton, and higher
education fellow Ittima Cherastidtham,
analyses the industry in an historical context.
The 10th and last chapter of the report,
which examines graduate employment and
income, is Grattan’s current focus.
16
Thanks to the demand-driven system
(which could soon be reintroduced),
between 2009 and 2015, undergraduate
enrolments leapt across socioeconomic
strata. This was part of a general
swing towards university education.
The years 1989 to 2016 saw a 40 per
cent increase in people gaining bachelor
degrees – from 19 to 41 per cent. Yet
GFC‑influenced job growth has been
sluggish, resulting in “many more people …
chasing the jobs that graduates aspire
to hold", the report says. Consequently,
graduates just aren’t getting jobs
like they used to. Unemployment or
underemployment, four months post-
graduation, peaked at 31 per cent in
2014. In early 2017, this figure was 28 per
cent. By contrast, before 2008, it was
15 per cent.
STYMIED SALARIES
“Early-career male graduates earned less
income in 2016 than 2006,” the report
states. Cherastidtham explained that this is
because they’re less likely to be employed
full-time, and in a professional capacity.
The report went on to suggest that,
based on outcomes of previous economic
downturns, this trend will continue for
some time. Though it’s not uniform: health
graduate salaries actually grew over the
decade, while those of science, arts and
commerce graduates dropped.
Because of this, Cherastidtham
cautioned that the government should not
unequivocally encourage young people to
pursue STEM careers.
Other key report takeaways include
that graduates’ satisfaction with university
teaching, after years of improvement, has
flatlined, and that research spending, while
still growing, has slowed.
To find out more, Campus Review spoke
with Cherastidtham.
CR: Why is the Grattan Institute particularly
interested in graduate outcomes?
IC: The first reason is because the topic
is of interest to the general public, it's not
just that we want to appeal to the graduate
sector.
The whole idea of graduate outcomes
has been discussed a lot in the media,
and many prospective students, parents
and current students are interested in how
much or what kind of benefits they are
going to receive.
Also, these kinds of things are pushed
further by the effect of the GFC as well as
the demand-driven system that means we
have many more graduates than otherwise.