Starting salaries increased from $4500 to $4800; Employment rate of SUTD graduates reached 87.6% last year
Lianhe Zaobao, 5 Apr 2023, 起薪从4500元增至4800元 新科大去年毕业生就业率达87.6％
(Translation)
87.6% of graduates from Singapore University of Technology and Design’s (SUTD) Class of 2022 found full-time permanent employment within half a year after graduating. This is slightly lower than the previous year’s 91%. The median starting salary increased from $4,500 to $4,800.
SUTD announced the results of the 2022 Graduate Employment Survey on Tuesday (April 4). According to the survey, despite the economic slowdown, about 90% of students found jobs within six months of completing their final examinations, 87.6% secured full-time employment; more than 55% of graduates secured employment in the Information & Communication, Financial & Insurance and Scientific Research & Development industries.
Additionally, nearly 55% of graduates who found full-time employment received at least two offers, and 34.5% received offers from companies where they had interned at. Internships are a requirement for all SUTD students.
Compared to 2021, the median gross monthly salary of SUTD’s fresh graduates in full-time permanent employment has increased by $300 to $4,800 in 2022. The mean gross monthly salary also increased to $5,102 in 2022, compared to $4,730 in 2021.
More than half of graduates received at least two job offers
SUTD, which offers technology and engineering courses, has graduated eight batches of students. Last year, there were 388 graduates, and 300 of them participated in this graduate employment survey.
The school also conducted a follow-up survey on the architecture and sustainable design students who graduated in 2019 and found that more than 90% of them had found jobs upon completing their practical training.
Professor Chong Tow Chong, SUTD President, said in a statement that SUTD students are still well sought-after by employers, and more than half of SUTD students have received at least two job offers. Almost 40% of the graduates are women taking science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses, which is 5 percentage points more than the previous year. “SUTD will continue nurturing young leaders and innovators with its interdisciplinary design education to serve societal needs and build a better world by design.”
Addressing the decline in the graduates’ full-time employment rate, SUTD pointed out that in the long run, the overall employment rate of graduates has remained stable at about 90%, and the annual employment rates may vary from year to year due to changes in the market and economic conditions. If part-time/free-lance jobs are included, the overall employment rate for Class of 2022 SUTD graduates is 91.5%, which is similar to the other public universities.
In February this year, the graduate employment survey results jointly released by the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University and Singapore University of Social Sciences also revealed that the full-time permanent employment rate and monthly salary of graduates have both increased.
Overall, the gross median monthly salary of graduates has increased from $3,800 in 2021 to $4,200 in 2022, and the full-time permanent employment rate has increased from 84% to 87.5%. Among them, the full-time permanent employment rate of graduates from the Department of Information and Digital Technology is as high as 93.5%, and the gross median monthly salary has also increased to $5,625.
SUTD’s Class of 2022 graduate, Riley Chin (27 years old), studied an engineering course focused on computer science and design. He had been actively sending out job applications since the start of last year and was hired in May. After graduating in September, he worked as a software engineer in an artificial intelligence technology company. However, as he was more interested in machine learning technology, he accepted an offer from another company not too long ago and is about to switch to work in this field.
Global technology giants have laid off employees one after another, but Riley believes that there are still many vacancies in the job market, and graduates should actively seek opportunities.
“Besides the tech giants, other companies are still hiring, and I believe there are still opportunities. However, the competition among job seekers will become correspondingly more intense. Through the Capstone Project that gives us the opportunity to research solutions to problems that businesses actually face, including our internship experience, the University helps us improve our CVs.”
Singapore Institute of Technology's graduation period is different from other universities, so the results of their graduate employment survey will be released later.