This is the first good news on the college hiring front that we’ve been able to report in a long time. The National Association of Colleges and Employers now says that employers are planning to hire 5.3% more college graduates from the class of 2009-10 than they did from the class of 2008-09.
In all, nearly 80% of the employers who responded to the NACE survey said they have plans to hire for full-time positions or internships this spring, while nearly 60% indicated that the number they plan to hire in the fall is equal to or greater than the number hired a year earlier.
Nearly all industries are reporting a projected increase, and all but one region (the Southeast) is expected to see an improvement in hiring. The biggest increase is expected in the Northeast, where employers say they expect a 25.5% hiring surge.
Earlier projections for the Class of 2010 predicted that hiring would be down 7%.
Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director, says it’s the first positive hiring outlook for new college graduates since October 2008, when employers predicted a 1.3% increase for the class of 2009. As the economy tanked, that positive quickly turned negative, and stayed that way ever since, hitting bottom about a year ago, when employers reported hiring 22% fewer new graduates than they did in 2008.
I guess we won’t know for a few months if the NACE survey is an insignificant blip, or if it signals a real turnaround in the job market for new college graduates. What do you think?
Read the full article: Hiring Outlook for New College Graduates Turns Positive