The Guardian has a story about (university) graduate employment and unemployment, Graduate unemployment at highest level for 17 years (Jessica Shepherd, The Guardian, November 1, 2010). What interested me was the statistics about how different types of degrees fared.
Those who had studied Chinese had the highest starting salary at £24,540 a year, while fine art graduates started on the lowest wage at £14,625. …
The government describes engineering degrees as “strategically important” for the economy. But 11.9% of civil engineering graduates were out of work six months after they graduated, as were 11.8% of mechanical engineering graduates. Geography and psychology graduates were least likely to be unemployed. Some 7.4% and 8.3% were out of a job respectively.
The author is well aware of the irony that the statistics don’t support the British government’s assumptions about which programs are valuable and therefore worthy of funding support. Arts and humanities are likely to see deep cuts. As for informatics, the article reports that,
Graduates with degrees in IT fared worst. One in six – or 16.3% – were unemployed six months after graduation. The previous year, 13.7% were out of work after the same period.