Graduate recruitment: outlook promising but 'fragile'

Incomes Data Services' latest research report (‘Pay and progression for graduates 2008') reveals that employers are predicting a 12.2% increase in graduate recruitment this year.

While this figure is less than the 16.4% recently forecast by the AGR and well below last year's actual increase of 18.3%, it remains broadly encouraging.  However there are some considerable variations within the overall predicted percentage rise.

For example, while manufacturing firms are looking to increase their graduate intake by some 31.7%, the financial sector is planning to take on 14.7% fewer graduates than last year, with some organisations imposing a total moratorium on graduate recruitment.  Public-sector demand for graduates has also declined from last year's double-digit growth to a more modest 7.8% in 2008.

Steve Tatton, the report's editor, commented: "It is evident that the graduate labour market is holding up, but it is fragile at present and a bad turn in the economy could easily tip what currently seems to be a modest ‘jobs boom' into a ‘jobs bust'."

On the remuneration front, this year's median rise in graduate starting salaries is expected to be just 2.5% - less than last year's 3.6% - taking the forecast average for 2008 to £23,800 (close to the AGR's prediction of £24,000).