SINGAPORE – Less than half of fresh graduates from private education institutions found full-time jobs in 2024, amid slowing economic growth and lower hiring demand.
The latest Private Education Institution Graduate Employment Survey, released by SkillsFuture Singapore on April 26, showed that 46.4 per cent of fresh graduates found full-time work, compared with 58.7 per cent in 2023.
More of these graduates found part-time or temporary work (24.2 per cent, up from 18.9 per cent in 2023), while fewer were doing freelance work (4.2 per cent, down from 5.7 per cent in 2023).
Overall, of the 2,300 fresh graduates in the labour force – those who are working, or not working but actively looking and available for jobs – surveyed, 74.8 per cent found permanent, freelance or part-time jobs within six months of graduating, a drop from the 83.2 per cent in 2023.
The median gross monthly salaries of those in full-time work in 2024 crept up to $3,500, compared with $3,400 in 2023. Those from Parkway College of Nursing and Allied Health and ERC Institute, which offers degree courses in business and technology among others, took home the most pay at $4,000, followed by graduates from the Singapore Institute of Management earned $3,600.
Fresh graduates from autonomous universities, such as Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore, started with a median monthly salary of $4,500, according to the joint employment survey for the 2024 cohort of these graduates. Results of the survey were released on Feb 24.
About 79.5 per cent of graduates from autonomous universities secured full-time permanent roles within six months of graduation, with 6 per cent doing part-time or temporary work, and 1.6 per cent working freelance.
Post-national service (post-NS) polytechnic graduates, meanwhile, started with a median monthly salary of $3,000, up from $2,963 in 2023.
The latest survey, conducted between November 2024 and March 2025, took responses from about 3,500 fresh graduates of full-time bachelor’s degree-level graduates across 27 private institutions, including James Cook University, PSB Academy and Management Development Institute of Singapore.
Out of this figure, about 2,300 graduates were in the labour force.
The poll findings focused on employment outcomes of those who graduated between May 2023 and April 2024 from full-time bachelor’s-level external degree programmes.
Among 2024’s graduates from private institutions, 28.3 per cent were either unemployed and looking for jobs, or in involuntary part-time or temporary employment. The figure was 10.7 per cent for graduates of autonomous universities, and 7.2 per cent for post-NS polytechnic graduates.
Graduates from engineering courses in private institutions had the highest proportion in full-time permanent jobs at 55.3 per cent, followed closely by those in the sciences, at 51.8 per cent.
Those from information and digital technologies commanded the highest median gross monthly salary at $4,080, followed by humanities and social sciences at $3,500. Salaries for engineering and arts-related graduates were not published due to small sample sizes.
- Gabrielle Chan is a journalist at The Straits Times, and covers everything related to education in Singapore.
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