10 September 2018 – Graduates from the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) continue to be well-received by the industry, with improved employment rates and competitive starting salaries.

85.6% of the university’s cohort of 1,530 graduates who completed their studies between October 2016 and September 2017 participated in the 2017 Joint Graduate Employment Survey (GES)[1], which took place from 1 March to 14 May 2018. This is the fourth year that SIT is conducting this annual survey, with graduates from SIT and SIT’s 10 Overseas University (OU) partners across 30 degree programmes.

The 2017 survey findings[2] revealed that SIT graduates in the labour force[3] achieved a high overall employment[4] rate of 92.3%, a 3.3%-point increase from 89.0% in 2016. The proportion of graduates in the labour force who secured full-time permanent (FTP) employment[5] increased by 5.8%-points from 77.1% in 2016 to 82.9% in 2017. Beyond full-time permanent employment, around 2.8% of graduates in the labour force were in freelance[6] employment in 2017. The percentage in part-time/temporary[7] employment decreased by 2.8%-points, from 9.4% in 2016 to 6.6% in 2017. The mean gross monthly salary[8] among fresh graduates employed in FTP employment was higher at $3,350, compared to $3,282 in 2016. The median gross monthly salary remained similar to last year at $3,200. The median gross monthly salaries for various Computing Science courses ranged from $3,600 to $3,800, while Nursing graduates earned a median gross salary of $3,650 in 2017.

GES 2017 Results at a Glance

This is also the first time that graduates from SIT-conferred degree programmes are part of the survey. Graduates from Bachelor with Honours in Accountancy secured an overall employment rate of 94.1%, with an FTP employment rate of 92.1%. For SIT’s Hospitality Business programme, the overall employment rate was 94.7%, with an FTP employment rate of 84.2%.

Employment rates for Healthcare-related programmes remain strong, with 97.4% of Allied Health (i.e. Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Diagnostic Radiography, and Radiation Therapy) graduates and 96.5% of Nursing graduates in FTP employment. Engineering graduates also saw an improved overall employment rate of 91.3% and FTP employment rate of 82.3% compared to the previous year (86.5% and 75.3% respectively).

Associate Professor (A/Prof) Ivan Lee, Vice-President (Industry & Community), SIT commented on the GES 2017 findings, “We are heartened that SIT students continue to enjoy high employability and competitive salaries despite SIT being a young university. With the world economy being increasingly unpredictable and complex, more and more employers value real work experience. At SIT, our focus on empowering students with an applied learning experience both within and outside of the classroom, as well as our strong symbiotic relationship with industry partners, allow our students to gain the much valued work experience and exposure.”

“One of the ways we do this is through the Integrated Work Study Programme (IWSP) which is flexibly designed to meet the needs of our industry partners. This allows undergraduates to work on real-world projects, thereby shifting students’ mindsets towards a work-study continuum. The programme has reaped positive results. For example, over 80% of graduates from our Accountancy and Hospitality Business programmes received job offers from the IWSP companies they worked in even before graduation,” added A/Prof Lee.

A flagship programme of SIT, the IWSP provides students with opportunities to integrate the knowledge they have gained in the classroom with real-world industry experience. Students from SIT-conferred degree programmes will be immersed in a real work environment for eight to 12 months, longer than traditional internships, that enables effective application of knowledge learnt and integration into the workforce. Since its inception in 2014, the IWSP has expanded to cover 16 SIT and joint degree programmes, with more than 1,000 students going out into the industry for their work-study attachments in the academic year 2018. The industry perceives the IWSP as a means to grow its talent pipeline, as the extended attachments allow employers to assign meaningful tasks and challenging projects to SIT’s students to assess their suitability as full-time hires.

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Notes:

[1] The Joint Graduate Employment Survey is conducted by five Autonomous Universities (NTU, NUS, SIT, SMU, and SUTD) every year to collect information on the employment status of graduates six months after the completion of their final examinations. Due to different academic calendars, NUS, NTU, and SMU conduct their surveys in November each year, while SUTD and SIT conduct their surveys in February and March respectively. SUSS will take part in the Joint Graduate Employment Survey from the next cycle.

[2] Details on SIT’s course-level results are available on the MOE website.

[3] Graduates in the labour force refer to economically active graduates (i.e. working, or not working but actively looking and available for a job).

[4] The overall employment rate refers to the number of graduates working in full-time permanent, part-time, temporary or freelance employment, as a proportion of graduates in the labour force (i.e. those who were working or not working but actively looking and available for work), approximately 6 months after completion of final examinations.

[5] Full-time permanent employment refers to employment of at least 35 hours a week and where the employment is not temporary. It includes those on contracts of one year or more.

[6] Freelance employment refers to those who operate their own business without employing any paid workers in the conduct of their business or trade.

[7] Part-time employment refers to employment of less than 35 hours a week. Temporary employment refers to casual, interim or seasonal employment, including those on contracts of less than one year.

[8] Gross monthly salary comprises the basic salary, fixed allowances, over-time pay and commissions, before deductions of the employee’s CPF contributions and personal income tax. Employer’s CPF contributions, bonuses, stock options, other lump sum payments, and payments-in-kind are excluded.