Employers are estimated to recruit more college graduates this year compared to last year, according to a new survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
The survey found that recruiters are planning to employ 8.6 percent more 2014 graduates than 2013. Students graduating with a bachelor's degree in accounting, business fields, engineering and computer sciences will be favoured than their peers who majored in other subjects. Master's level candidates, including M.B.A.s, are also expected to make the cut.
These estimates are proving to be right as some of the 2014 graduates have already received their offer letters.
Reid Browning, a 22-year-old University of Missouri graduate, will soon start his work with Kraft Foods. Browning from Kansas is very optimistic about the job market that is slowly beginning to recover from the global financial crisis.
"We know things are getting better. We are just glad we weren't out there searching in 2008 and 2009," Kansas City reports.
Apart from employment oppurtunities, the association's survey also predicts better compensation for students this year. The average starting salary for new graduates with a bachelor's degree is estimated to be at $45,473 - a 1.2 percent increase from last year.
"Things are definitely trending up," said Mike Theobald, the director of career services at Rockhurst University. "Our monthly job postings that come through our career services office are up by 30 percent. There are a lot more job opportunities today then we'd seen in the last couple of years."
The ripples of the Great Recession that gripped the country for five years till 2009 are being felt till now, making it still difficult for new college graduates to find jobs.
According to the Economic Policy Institute , the unemployment rate for college graduates is 8.5 percent in 2014 compared to 5.5 percent in 2007 before the recession. Last year, about 260,000 college graduates worked at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CNN reports.
Alyssa Davis, a researcher with the Economic Policy Institute, described the job recovery "agonizingly slow."
"The fate of recent college graduates is tied to the fate of the overall economy," said Davis, a co-author of its latest study on the job market for recent college grads. "We are still experiencing such weak demand for workers after 2007."
"We hear stories about how much more difficult it is for 2013 graduates who are still unemployed to find a job than it is for people just now coming out of college."
