Graduating from a Singapore university? Survey shows private grads lag in jobs, pay gap widens

SINGAPORE, May 27 — Fewer than half of private university graduates in Singapore secured full-time jobs this year, reflecting a cooling job market despite marginally better pay.

Only 46.4 per cent landed full-time work in 2024, down from 58.7 per cent last year, The Straits Times reported today, citing findings from the Private Education Institution Graduate Employment Survey by SkillsFuture Singapore released on April 26.

More took on part-time or temporary roles, rising to 24.2 per cent from 18.9 per cent in 2023.

Freelancing dipped to 4.2 per cent, while overall employment – including part-time and freelance – fell to 74.8 per cent, from 83.2 per cent last year.

Salaries inched up, with the median monthly pay for full-time hires at S$3,500, compared to S$3,400 in 2023.

Graduates from Parkway College and ERC Institute earned the most at S$4,000, followed by SIM grads at S$3,600.

But they still lag far behind their peers from public universities like the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), who earned a median of S$4,500.

Nearly 80 per cent of public university grads secured full-time jobs within six months, with just 1.6 per cent freelancing.

Polytechnic graduates saw a salary bump to S$3,000 after serving in Singapore’s national service, from S$2,963 last year.

The survey covered 3,500 graduates from 27 private institutions, including James Cook University and PSB Academy.

Of these, 2,300 were in the labour force, defined as working or actively job-hunting.

A worrying 28.3 per cent were either unemployed or stuck in involuntary part-time or temp jobs – far higher than the 10.7 per cent rate for public university graduates and 7.2 per cent for polytechnic graduates.

Engineering graduates from private institutions fared best, with 55.3 per cent in full-time roles, followed by science graduates at 51.8 per cent.

Information and digital tech graduates earned the highest median salary at S$4,080, followed by those from the humanities and social sciences at S$3,500.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/less...ase-in-salaries

Inb4 Malaysian steal Singaporean job...

deport malaysian immigrants stealing jobs
make singapore great again

There's infographic for this

"Nearly 80 per cent of public university grads secured full-time jobs within six months, with just 1.6 per cent freelancing."
It is their public university vs private university problem.
Wrong and misleading title. Highlight also wrong

This post has been edited by anudora: May 28 2025, 12:23 PM

Salah sinki baru taking sinki lama jobs

If SG graduates also can't get job thn how can those Malaysians that didn't attend SPM expect to get any job in SG?

They got employment scale one la..
If office job, dunno is how many percent need to be singaporean, then balance is foreigner like malaysian

If 3d job, then scale is different

not misleading. a problem is a problem.

malaysians got celery SGD 1500 edi tokoksingsong maa...make singapork great again worr

SG uni le of cause quality, sini logic pun ade problem

The survey talks about private education graduate.

TS change to all sinkie graduates. Jeli also no need like that....

https://www.ssg.gov.sg/resources/pei/pei-ge...rvey-2023-2024/

private education = external degree, not from the 5 universities in sinkieland.

sini bame bangla curi kerja
sana blame malaysian curi kerja

I change nothing, it is private graduate. did i say all?

This post has been edited by ipohps3: May 28 2025, 01:45 PM

if Singaporean is willing to take the 3D jobs, i think the numbers of Malaysians work that will be halved by 50%

It might interest people that close to half of sinkie private education graduates are non-sinkies. For sinkie universities, less than 1 in 10 intake are non-sinkies.

Yeah wrong title

But public uni kids easier as the government absorbed most of it as part of their preferential policy

For private they had to compete with immigrants that flocking to SG esp from Malaysia which is much cheaper option for employers

Last time I was paid 6k sg dollars .. myself is an experience IT engineers with 5 years experience and my salary is the same as their local fresh grads .. of coz the company took me

they already have bangla for that
thn the lower restaurant job, they have elderly to do that

so what else if left for malaysians that don't have even a cert?

why wrong title. it is indeed a problem in Singapore as stated in the news.

if you say title not specific enough okay lah.

This post has been edited by ipohps3: May 28 2025, 01:52 PM

Retails, F&B banyak Malaysiansk-4ksgd

Still got banyak that graduate from SG don't want work as