Job Prospects Looking Better for ’88 Grads

Students graduating from college this year have better chances of finding jobs than in at least the last five years, university placement experts say.

An estimated 989,000 students will graduate from college this year, with most receiving their diplomas in May and June. While jobs are more plentiful, competition remains keen for the best positions, college placement officers say.

Available job opportunities are up by 3.8% since last year, said Patrick Scheetz, assistant director of Michigan State University’s placement services and author of “Recruiting Trends 1987/88.”

“Last year, businesses tightened up their belts but then realized they did not have enough people at the entry level. So this year they loosened up,” Scheetz told Reuters.

Prospects are best in hotel, restaurant and institutional management, electrical engineering, computer science and accounting, Scheetz’s nationwide survey found.

But he found relatively few job openings in agriculture and natural resources, social sciences, journalism and liberal arts, fields which many students select as their major.

“They are just more competitive,” he said.

‘Economy Is Strong’

Victor Lindquist, director of placement services at Northwestern University, said many employers have expanded on-campus recruitment activities over the past year.

He said 1988 is “the best of the last five years because the economy is strong and the recession has not been realized. Reorganizations and mergers are also put behind us.”

Even so, the competition will be tough, and not all graduates will find jobs in their chosen fields.

“Corporations are far more selective because they have a vast pool of qualified students they can choose from,” Lindquist said. “It’s very competitive in the job market.”

Naturally, such competition gives graduates from the top tier universities an edge in the market, he said.

“The majority of graduates will not have a job when they get out of college, unless they are in engineering or accounting. But most students will find employment over the summer,” Lindquist said.

College graduates are one segment of the 3.7 million people ages 16 to 24 entering the job market between April and July this year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Many of those people, however, are students seeking summer employment.

The biggest job markets for college graduates are in California, Arizona and Colorado, followed by states in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest, Scheetz said.

For his study, Scheetz surveyed 1,019 employers from business, industry, government and education who will hire 10% of this year’s estimated 989,000 graduating students nationwide.

Average starting salaries are highest for chemical engineers at $30,197 and electrical and mechanical engineers at over $29,400, he said.

Salaries are lowest in such fields as retail, natural resources and home economics, averaging around $17,200.