SINGAPORE: Half of the respondents in a university graduate employment poll who were unemployed six months after graduation had received job offers, Minister of State for Education Gan Siow Huang said on Friday (Mar 7).
In this group, two-thirds were going to start work “in due course”, while the remaining one-third rejected the offers for various reasons.
She was responding to questions in parliament based on findings from the Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey published in February.
Of 12,500 fresh graduates surveyed in 2024, 87.1 per cent were employed within six months of completing their final exams, dropping from 89.6 per cent in 2023.
Among those who found employment, 79.5 per cent secured a full-time job, a decline from 84.1 per cent the year before.
On Friday, Ms Gan said that while the labour market was tight in 2024, there was lower hiring demand and fewer vacancies.
“We also observed some graduates taking longer to secure full-time employment in 2024,” she added.
Together, these factors could have contributed to the decrease in full-time employment and increase in unemployment reported in the survey, she said.
