What graduates are earning

By JULIE MIDDLETON

The manufacturing and engineering sectors paid new graduates the best money in the past year - but corporate services and administration were comparatively miserly.

The latest Graduate Salaries and Recruitment Report, issued each year since 1994 by Wellington-based human resources company Cubiks, surveyed the pay of 334 people who graduated with a degree from a university or polytechnic.

As a group, they were in either their first, second or third year of work after graduation.

None was earning less than $31,000.

Graduates in the manufacturing industry were taking home a comparatively handsome median salary of $43,000.

Engineers, draughtspeople and scientists were pocketing median salaries of $40,000.

People in technical fields garnered a median of $39,650.

At the bottom of the heap were those working in corporate services and administration, who could expect a median of $32,000.

Cubiks manager Kevin McBride said there were fewer opportunities for graduates.

Many trimmed-down corporates now ran talent-spotting programmes in alternate years only, and others had "substantially reduced" the number of graduates they hired.

That was mirrored in employers' cuts to under-grad sponsorship schemes, such as vacation work and post-qualification jobs - 35.3 per cent of organisations offered such programmes this year, against 64.7 per cent last year.

Application forms and referees' reports were still two of the most common assessment tools used on jobseekers.

But, in line with other surveys, psychometric testing was rapidly joining the graduate employer's toolkit.

Although there has been a slight dip in use of psychometric assessments in the last year - 52.9 per cent in the year to July compared with 60.7 per cent in the previous corresponding period - the 1999 survey showed just 40 per cent of employers using the tests to determine work skills and styles.

Seventeen organisations contributed to the survey.

Forty-seven per cent of participants belonged to a company comprising more than 500 staff.

None of the participants worked for a firm of fewer than 51 employees.

The survey is skewed towards the capital, however.

Just over half the graduates surveyed work in Wellington. Only 13 per cent work in Auckland.

The Government, statutory authorities and boards employed the largest slice of the graduates - 29.4 per cent.