Nearly $104,000. That's how much college students
expect. Their annual salary will be a year after
graduating. The number, accordi to a survey done by
real estate, which That's almost double what the
average college graduate salary is around 55,000. But
the gap between expectations and reality hasn't always
been like this. There is a comparison now between the
recent survey and one done in 2019. The expected salary
a few years ago was roughly 58 grand, compared to t
actual average of around 47,000. Here to discuss this
more is Paul McDonald,, he is the senior executive
director for the global talent solutions firm called
Robert Half. So Paul, a big gap here. I mean, what is
the reason between what they're expecting versus what
they're actually likely to make once they get out of
college. I think the words out that the job market is
very, very good for the new college grad and what
they're hearing from those that graduated before them
Is that the raises are coming hot and heavy. It's just
an indicator of how many job openings there are.
There's over 11 million job openings today. There's a
lot of confidence with the workers today, they're
quitting Their employment um to go elsewhere. And
there's a there's a fact that comes out of the American
Government Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh that the
unemployment rate for college graduates, 25 years of
age and older is 2%. That's um literally full full
employment. So you compare and contrast that with
what's going on in the market. So from 2019 to 2 today,
nearly three years later through the pandemic. I think
everybody understands that it's a really good job
market for new grads and for that matter for all
workers. So we take a look at you know what they're
considering right now, that might be different from
just three years ago and that gap was much smaller. Uh
You know what what do you think it is? It's just the
the low unemployment rate out there. Well when you look
at it um they know that there's a professiona
staffing, professional jobs are plentiful technology,
you know anything from a a tech worker that's doing
coding through to a health care worker that's in a back
office, financial analyst accountants, um Creative and
marketing individuals and Human resource and they're
all in demand. So I think what you were seeing is we
came through the pandemic where there was, you know,
this very high unemployment for a period of time. But
there's been a steady climb out of that. We also have
to have a study done By the National Association of
Colleges and Employers. Nice. And they put out an
annual survey worker. The companies are actually
planning on hiring one third more workers off college
campuses this year than they did in 2021. All that
combined is just proving that the word's out on campus
that they should expect more inflation. Also let's not
forget about inflation and you can't go a day or an
hour without hearing about the inflation rate and the
eight, you know, the 8% rate. Um the wages are catching
up, they're not there yet, but they're catching up. So
given that there is so much inflation, I mean, is this
a good bargaining chip for recent college grads when it
comes to negotiating salary? Well, I think inflation is
part of that, but they also the scarcity of workers. S
um there's 1.8 job openings for every person looki
for a job today and that's, you know, again goes ba
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics information so
know that the balance of power now is in their favor.
The worker, the job seeker, the companies are also know
this and they're offering higher salaries, they'
offering sign on bonuses and they understand that in
order to land the best of breed, they are going to have
to pay up because competition among for the worker is
so um frothy right now. Well, it sounds like a good
time to be a college grad Paul McDonald with the glo
talent solutions from Robert half. Thanks so much for
joining us this weekend. Thank you