Employment rates for fresh poly grads return to pre-pandemic levels

BOTH employment rates and pay were up for fresh polytechnic graduates in 2021, improving upon both 2020 and the pre-pandemic performance in 2019, according to the 2021 Polytechnic Graduate Employment Survey.

The survey indicated that 91.4 per cent of fresh polytechnic graduates were hired within six months of graduation, which was an increase from 85.4 per cent in 2020 and higher than the 89.1 per cent figure before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019.

The employment rate for post-National Service (post-NS) graduates was 94.2 per cent in 2021, up from 91.9 per cent in 2020 and comparable to 94.1 per cent in 2019 before the pandemic.

The median gross monthly salary for fresh graduates went up to reach S$2,400 in 2021, up from both S$2,350 in 2020 and S$2,300 in 2019.

The fresh graduates in the Information and Digital Technologies course clusters received a median gross monthly salary of S$2,500, which was the highest pay raise among course clusters since the start of the pandemic. This was increased from S$2,300 in 2020 and 2019. 

The post-NS graduates in the Health Science cluster also saw the highest pay raise, with a median gross monthly salary of S$2,800, up from S$2,698 in 2020 and S$2,627 in 2019. 

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For fresh and post-NS graduates combined, the percentage of those with full-time permanent jobs was lower than the pre-pandemic level, at 58.1 per cent in 2021 compared to 61.1 per cent in 2019. But this was largely by choice, with 27.6 per cent of survey respondents making a voluntary choice of part-time or temporary employment.

The 2021 survey attracted a total of 14,216 respondents, but about half of these were not seeking employment. The annual survey was conducted between October and November 2021 by Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic.

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