Compiled from: http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/content/download/3869/16197/file/GradStats 2008.pdf
Financial crisis brings good times to an end - National - smh.com.au
Graduate Careers Australia executive director Cindy Tilbrook said while the pain might be eased by vacancies due to an ageing workforce and an continuing skills shortage in areas such as health and engineering, those with a "less defined" career path from humanities or generalist degrees were more likely to struggle to find work.
"They are the ones who feel it even in good times because their outcomes are not as good as those in skill-shortage areas," she said.
Andrew Norton � Blog Archive � Over-qualified workers
26.3% of graduates were working in jobs that the ABS occupational classifications system says require vocational or no post-secondary education rather than higher education. That’s only .2% lower than last year. Work I have done on data from the 2006 census suggests that it is the generalist degrees, and particularly arts (with the exception of those with degrees in ‘philosophy and religious studies’), that drag down the average. About 40% of other Arts graduates are in jobs that don’t require higher education.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Education/documents/2007/02/07/UUKfulltext.pdf
One of the first analyses to consider the economic benefits of higher education subjects found that men in possession of an undergraduate degree achieved an earnings premium of approximately 15% over individuals in possession of A-levels.The corresponding estimate for women was 19%.
However, men in possession of mathematics degrees achieved a 25.7% earnings premium over those with A-levels as their highest qualification, while corresponding women achieved a 38.6% earnings premium. In contrast,the premium for men in possession of undergraduate degrees in the arts was 4% less relative to those individuals with A-levels,whilst women achieved a 17% premium. Irrespective of the subject of study,the financial benefit of completing a degree is much greater for women than for men, but this may be due to the relatively low earnings of non-graduate women.
Policy Winter (Jun-Aug) 2000
… a survey by ACNielsen found that employers thought their Arts graduates had below average literacy skills. …
Since the mid-1970s Arts graduates have in each decade been experiencing a more difficult transition from study to work, to the point where more than 30% are still looking for full-time work four months after graduating. While their labour market position improves substantially over time, they never come close to matching their peers in some other degrees. People with degrees in what the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls ‘society and culture’ have unemployment rates about 50% above those of graduates generally. Wages too remain well below average, probably partly because some graduates are working in jobs for which degrees are not required.
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