Graduate Labour Market

The graduate labour market looks at the distribution of graduates by industries/employers. It is considered separately from the overall UK labour market as a comparator only. Overall employment figures are generally aggregated, thus being wide open to scrutiny and question. With such breakdowns, it is possible to examine in greater detail, on an annual basis, the worth of a degree.

This section aims to provide graduates and employers with a brief insight into the current climate in the graduate labour market, in relation to the overall UK labour market. Such information can aid recruitment drives, and raise awareness about issues effecting students upon graduating. With widening participation a major government agenda, the end to this is hopefully a higher skilled labour market. In Lehman's terms this means it is more difficult for graduates to get jobs now than in previous years due to increased competition. The information and Links in this section will hopefully go some way to helping our graduates make more informed decisions about their futures, and giving them an online guide to what is currently available to them. In addition employers will find the information useful when it comes to recruiting graduates.

The region currently has approximately 50,000 undergraduates studying at the 3 Merseyside HEIs. These will all graduate at some point over the next 3 years, around 8000 a year, meaning a huge supply of graduates competing for jobs. In the past, figures have show that Merseyside retains some 34% of these graduates (2700 approx.), which would lead us to believe that Merseyside loses a lot of talent each year. This figure is another which is improving. Thanks to regeneration in the region there are now more graduate jobs on offer than there have been in recent years, and more methods for gaining access to these jobs. The majority of graduates who stay in the region tend to be from scientific or business/professional courses…with over 60% gaining employment in the public sector.

In terms of Occupations, from recent research carried out at Liverpool John Moores University, Merseyside graduates whom remain here upon graduating tend to go into roles in health & welfare, personal and protective service (23.7%) management and administrative (19.6%) and teaching (17.7%)

Although these are typically destinations of recent graduates, in early 2003 typical areas for development and investment, known as growth sectors, were identified. These growth sectors provide some clue as to the key industries for graduate employment opportunity over the next 4 to 5 years. Some of these include, Creative Industries, Automotive, ICT and Biotechnology.

Finally, Merseyside has one of the lowest averages for Graduate unemployment which is quite low at just under 5%, the same as the national average, showing that those whom remain in the region have a high chance of getting a job.