Singapore – Singapore Management University’s (SMU) class of 2023 registered healthy and stable overall employment, with 92.3 per cent of graduates employed and getting good starting salaries.
Results of the annual Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey, released on Feb 22, also showed that 68.4 per cent of this employed group were offered full-time permanent jobs before graduation, while the rest found their jobs within six months of completing the final exams.
Of those who secured full-time jobs, 52.5 per cent were offered employment through internships, which are compulsory for SMU undergraduates.
Both mean and median gross monthly salaries remained largely unchanged from 2022 figures, at around $4,890 and $4,500, respectively.
The top three industries of employment for SMU graduates were financial and insurance; information and communication; and legal, accounting and auditing.
SMU provost Timothy Clark said the results show that in spite of the challenging economic landscape in 2023, there was high demand for SMU graduates.
“This underscores the value employers place in our comprehensive and interdisciplinary educational approach, alongside a co-curricular programme which fosters values and essential skills critical in the professional arena,” he said.
“Furthermore, SMU’s Internship Programme enhances the rigour and workplace applicability of students’ experiential learning. Approximately half of our graduates obtained job offers from internships, and we take pride in being the pioneer university in Singapore to mandate internships as a graduation requirement.”
The job rates and salary levels across all the four autonomous universities – SMU, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore University of Social Sciences – showed that the proportion of graduates who found employment within six months of taking their final exams dropped to 89.6 per cent in 2023, from 93.8 per cent in 2022.
However, the median gross monthly salary among fresh graduates in full-time permanent employment rose slightly by 2.7 per cent to $4,313, from $4,200 in 2022.
