When you’re doing your tertiary education, I’m sure most of us would have one primary concern – how much will I be able to make once I graduate, assuming I can get a job in the first place?
Well, I’m here to answer your questions, and I hope the following will help to quell at least some of your worries about finding a job and the amount of salary you’ll make as a polytechnic graduate.
The annual Graduate Employment Survey (GES) was conducted by the five polytechnics together – Nanyang, Ngee Ann, Republic, Singapore, Temasek – last year and a total of 8,685 out of 11,598 fresh graduates took part in the survey. They were asked about their employment status about six months after their final examinations on 1 October 2019.
The results have just been released and you would probably be delighted to know that poly graduates saw good job prospects and better salaries despite the economic slowdown.
Finding A Job After Graduation
According to the survey, 90.7% of the poly graduates were able to get a job within six months of graduation, which is much higher than 2018’s 89.5% and 2017’s 87.3%.
Around 60.3% of the 8,685 graduates were either working or not working but actively looking and available for work, while about 38.9% were pursuing or preparing to begin further studies.
The remaining 0.8% were reported to be taking a break and not actively looking for jobs.
What About Monthly Salaries?
The overall median gross monthly salary for full-time employed graduates was $2,400 last year, which is a significant increase from $2,350 in 2018 and $2,235 in 2017.
If you’re curious about which polytechnic course yields the highest salary, health sciences won last year with graduates earning $2,600 a month.
Engineering graduates didn’t fall too far off from the highest as they were able to bring home $2,470 a month, while information and digital technologies or humanities and social sciences graduates earned $2,450 a month.
If you wanted something to compare to, fresh graduates from four publicly funded universities in full-time jobs were found to have a median gross monthly salary of $3,500 in 2018.
Taking The Polytechnic Route
If you’ve just received your ‘O’ level results and are still wondering which route to take, perhaps the manager and senior lecturer at the diploma of business in Temasek Polytechnic, Ms Hoa Peng Sum, can shed some insight.
She shared, “Employers always look for work experience, and polytechnic graduates are equipped with the knowledge and practical skills that come from their internship attachment programmes. These are skills that are valuable not just in the workforce, but also when applying for universities.”
A Polytechnic GES Committee representative added, “The polytechnics will continue to work closely with industry partners to help ensure that our graduates have the relevant knowledge and skills to meet the needs of the economy, and are able to find good jobs and enjoy fulfilling careers.”
