HKUST Graduates Succeed in Job Market

More than 98% of class-of-’99 graduates from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) had found jobs, started businesses or been accepted for further studies by December last year, according to a survey released by HKUST’s Career Center.

Of the 1,826 respondents, 84% were engaged in full-time employment or business start-ups, 1% were doing temporary or part-time jobs, while 14% were pursuing further studies. Their mean gross monthly income was $11,439, down seven percentage points from the previous year.

Business (69%) continued to be the largest employment sector, followed by manufacturing (15%), education (7%), construction (4%), government (3%) and social services (2%).

In terms of job nature, systems analysis and computer programming (21%) replaced engineering (19%) as the most popular type of job, followed by marketing and sales (20%), accounting (13%) and administration and management (8%).

“With a gradual recovery of the local economy, and an exponential growth of the information technology (IT) industry, the employment situation of the class-of-’99 graduates has improved significantly over their counterparts in 1998. They received more job offers, and obtained their first offer at an earlier time,” said Cheryl Lee, counselor at the Career Center.

“The survey shows the number of unemployed graduates drop significantly from 4.8% in 1998 to 1.8% last year. The situation is much better than within society at large for which an unemployment rate of 6% was recorded during the survey period (October to December 1999),” she said.

Of the 248 respondents who opted for further studies, 88% were taking advanced degrees at local institutions, including 69% attending HKUST.

The survey covered a total of 1,862 full-time bachelor degree recipients. The response rate was 98%.