Salaries for postgraduates increase

By Lauren Ahwan   

Salaries for postgraduates have increased by 5.5 per cent but their employment rate has fallen, new research shows.

The employment rate is the lowest it has been in a decade, with about 87 per cent of postgraduates in full-time employment four months after finishing their studies in 2009, compared with about 90 per cent the previous year.

Graduate Careers Australia acting director Bruce Guthrie is playing down the employment figures, saying the research was undertaken during the global financial crisis and must be viewed in perspective.

“Although full-time postgraduate employment rates were down in 2009 compared with 2008, they remained much higher than those for either bachelor degree graduates or for individuals in the overall Australian labour force,” he says.

The GCA research found the median salary for postgraduates grew by 5.5 per cent between 2008 and 2009, reaching $68,600 overall.

Coursework masters degree graduates are the highest paid, with a median salary of $72,000, up $2000 from the previous year.

Experience still counts, however, with postgraduates going into their first full-time job earning substantially less than those with previous work experience.

In the case of coursework masters degrees, graduates in their first job typically earned $18,000 less than those with full-time experience.

“This shows that employers are still willing to pay a premium for relevant experience, even when an employee has postgraduate qualifications,” Mr Guthrie says.

Council of Australian Postgraduate Association president Tammi Jonas describes the fall in postgraduate employment as a “glitch” and believes future research will show employment returning to previous levels.

“There’s more demand than can be met for research-qualified students,” she says.

“People are wanting higher and higher qualifications.

“That’s demonstrated by pay levels going up.

“Employers want these more qualified people.”

Flinders University head of admissions, examinations and graduates Peter Torjul says postgraduate courses provide students with more skills and knowledge than can be gained through bachelor degree studies.

“Postgraduate study is a pathway for applicants to improve their career prospects in their profession or, in some cases, to make a career change to a new occupation,” he says. “Depending on the course, postgraduate study can be flexible – offered externally or on a full or part-time basis. This flexibility allows people to develop their careers whilst fitting their study around family, job and life circumstances.”

Meanwhile, the research shows fewer women than men receive employer-sponsored benefits while studying, such as financial support and time off for study.

“It is not clear from the data why this would be the case,” Mr Guthrie says. “It could possibly be that female postgraduates are less assertive than their male counterparts when it comes to asking their employers for study leave or financial assistance.”

It also shows the majority of postgraduates in full-time work are in professional or managerial roles.

Angelik Orphanou, 24, graduated from Flinders University last year with a Master of Speech Pathology and found work three months later with the Inner Southern Community Health Service.

Ms Orphanou says most of last year’s speech pathology graduates managed to find work within four months.

She says postgraduate speech pathologists command higher pay than those who studied a bachelor’s degree but in many instances employers are paying for greater life experience.

“So they have another degree, they have more life experience and they’ve had more experience with children. They have more skills (to bring to the job),” she says.

“I guess having additional qualifications (as a postgraduate) may be attractive to employers but I think it’s also how you present yourself (at interviews) and what sort of job you can do.”

MINIMUM WAGE

The overall median salary for all postgraduates in 2009 was $68,600, an increase of $3600 from the 2008 figure of $65,000.

The 2009 median salary for:

Postgraduate diploma/certificate graduates was $64,500 (up $4500 from 2008).

Coursework masters graduates was $72,000 (up $2000 from 2008).

Bachelor degree graduates was $50,000 (up $3500 from 2008).

The median annual salary for:

Diploma/certificate postgraduates in a first full-time job was $54,500 (up $4500 from 2008).

Diploma/certificate postgraduates in first full-time employment earned a median salary $9900 less than other postgraduates at that award level ($54,500 versus $64,400).

Coursework masters graduates in their first full-time employment earned a median salary $18,000 less than other postgraduates at that award level ($54,000 versus $72,000).

Research masters/PhD graduates in first full-time employment earned a median salary $6000 less than other postgraduates at that award level ($63,000 versus $69,000).

Source: Graduate Careers Australia

Article from The Advertiser, November 6. 2010.