The Australian Social Research Center released the results of its 2023 employment survey for domestic students early this month, focusing on full-time employment rates within 4-6 months post-graduation and after three years.

The top five fields of study with the highest employment rates are pharmacy, rehabilitation, medicine, dentistry and engineering, according to the survey sponsored by the Department of Education.

Slightly lower employment rates were observed in fields such as computer and information technology, education, veterinary science, nursing, and law, with 80-90% of graduates securing full-time employment soon after graduation.

In contrast, fields with the lowest employment rates included creative arts, communications, social work, social sciences, and mathematics.

Only 50-69% of graduates in these fields found full-time employment within 4-6 months of graduating, though this rate rose to 82-89% over three years.

The tourism, hospitality, personal services, sports, and recreation sectors were notably impacted by Covid-19.

In 2020, only around 50% of recent graduates in these fields found employment. With economic recovery, employment rates in these sectors rose by 21-35% by 2023.

The 2023 employment survey was conducted online, gathering responses from 47,000 domestic graduates from 116 higher education institutions who had also participated in the 2020 survey shortly after graduating.