SINGAPORE
TODAY-MARCH 22
Graduates from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) kept up their record of earning higher starting salaries than their peers from other autonomous universities, with its third batch also continuing to sustain high overall employment rates, the university said in a media release on Thursday (March 22).
The median gross monthly salary for fresh graduates from Singapore’s fourth autonomous university employed in full-time permanent jobs was S$3,700 in 2017 — up 1.4 per cent from S$3,650 in 2016. The figure for SUTD’s pioneer batch in 2015 was S$3,600.
Releasing the results of its graduate employment survey a month after Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Singapore Management University (SMU), SUTD also reported that overall employment rate for its graduates went up by 0.4 percentage points, from 91.0 per cent in 2016 to 91.4 per cent in 2017.
In February, TODAY reported that the median gross monthly starting pay for fresh graduates from NUS, NTU and SMU was S$3,400 in 2017, up S$100 from the year before. That survey, which was released on Feb 26, was conducted by NTU, NUS, and SMU, which collectively polled more than 80 per cent, or 11,628 out of 14,287 of their full-time fresh graduates.
The three universities also found that the proportion of their graduates who started work within six months of completing their final examinations dipped to 88.9 per cent last year, from 89.5 per cent in 2016. This figure was the lowest since the survey was first carried out for the 2012 cohort.
More fresh graduates from SMU, NTU and NUS also chose to work on a part-time or temporary basis, as the percentage rose from 3.9 per cent in 2016 to 4.4 per cent last year.
For SUTD, more than nine in 10 SUTD fresh graduates were employed within six months of completing their final examinations, a figure similar to 2016’s.
Some 86.2 per cent of its graduates secured full-time permanent employment in 2017, an increase from 84 per cent in 2016. In particular for engineering graduates, the full-time permanent employment rate was 89.6 per cent in 2017, a 3.5 percentage point increase compared with 2016.
The mean gross monthly salary for SUTD’s fresh graduates in full-time permanent employment also remained consistently high, at S$3,859 in 2017 compared with S$3,853 in 2016, the university said.
Some of the top hiring sectors for SUTD graduates include information and communication, scientific research and development, and financial and insurance, with graduates from SUTD’s information systems technology and design pillar again achieving a 100 per cent full-time employment rate and a median salary of $4,000.
SUTD surveyed around 85 per cent – 228 fresh graduates – from its third cohort of 267 between mid-February and March 2018. Students from NUS, NTU and SMU usually graduate in May, while students from SUTD graduate in late August or early September.
On the results, Professor Chong Tow Chong, SUTD’s acting president and provost, said: “SUTD students have been carefully nurtured within SUTD’s multi-disciplinary technology and design ecosystem to hone their critical thinking and problem solving skills. By equipping
every student with industry experience through internships, coupled with overseas exposure to provide them with a global perspective, SUTD graduates are industry-, region- and future-ready.
“We are pleased that for the third-consecutive year, employers continue to recognise these invaluable qualities, and our graduates continue to enjoy a high employment rate and starting salary.”
