Large number of new grads still looking for jobs: survey

Although 52 percent of the respondents said they started looking for jobs before graduating in June, 45 percent said they had not succeeded in finding a full-time job as of November, according to the results of the survey released yesterday.

The survey was carried out Nov. 14-28 by the online employment service provider 1111 Job Bank among people who graduated from senior high schools or tertiary education institutes this summer.

The figure for unsuccessful job hunters was nearly double that of the year-earlier level, when 23.12 percent of fresh graduates said in similar survey conducted in December 2007 that they were still looking for full-time work.

The poll also found that 63 percent of the new graduates who responded remained jobless as of November. Of the total, 18 percent said they had found employment but had quit for a variety of reasons.

Of the respondents still looking for jobs, nearly 66 percent said they had never worked in a part-time job, representing an increase of 20.5 percent year-on-year.

This figure shows that fewer jobless people have been taking part-time jobs this year than last year, according to the 1111 pollsters.

Of the new graduates now working full time, 42.89 percent said they are planning to change jobs after Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan. 26, 2009. Last December, the figure stood at 57.73 percent.

Nearly 52 percent of the fresh graduates who are now working said they had not changed jobs, the survey found.

On average, the new graduates who have been in full-time work since graduating but who have since left their jobs had changed jobs 1.67 times over the past five months, compared to two times last year, according to the survey results.

Of the reasons for quitting, 31.44 percent mentioned failure of the job to meet their expectations, 17.85 percent mentioned long working hours and 16.15 percent mentioned excessive work pressure.

Another 15.58 percent mentioned a desire to find another job with higher pay and better benefits, while 14.45 percent said they left their job as a result of being laid off.

The survey results also show that the starting monthly salaries of successful job-seekers averaged NT$25,726 (US$780) this year, compared to the NT$27,974 listed as the average expected salary.

The survey obtained 1,346 valid responses with a margin of error of 2.67 percentage points.

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