Graduates in employment statistics
The number of graduates in employment six months after graduating has fallen from 61.4 per cent for the 2008 cohort to 59.2 per cent in 2009. The trend for psychology was the same, falling from 57.8 per cent to 55.2 per cent. That's according to the latest survey published by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, based on questionnaires sent out in winter 2009/10 to all UK- and EU-domiciled students that graduated in 2009. There were 224,895 responses to the survey - an 82 per cent response rate.
Overall, the proportion of graduates categorised as out of work - i.e. not in paid or voluntary employment or in further education - has also increased, from 7.9 per cent of 2008 graduates to 8.9 per cent of those who graduated in 2009. However, psychology fares favourably on this measure thanks to the large number of psychology graduates in employment or further study. Although the number of psychology graduates out of work or training has increased to 8.3 per cent (from 7.4 per cent), this is a lower figure than for many of the other sciences, including biology (10 per cent), physics (11.7 per cent), chemistry (8.7 per cent), sociology (9.5 per cent) and economics (11 per cent).
--Christian Jarrett
www.hecsu.ac.uk/index.htm
The UK population is surely on the increase. The intakes for primary schools in England is large and so in future years there is probably going to be a largish work force. This implies a growing population of youngsters who need to be guided and kept on the straight and narrow until they are into employment.