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Why 2022 is shaping as a difficult year for graduate employers

Grant Robson

Head of Employer Partnerships at Prosple

Most employers will be used to receiving thousands of applications from students, however, 2022 shapes as a difficult year for graduate employers, with several factors likely to play a part in a decrease in application numbers. On the eve of the graduate recruitment season, we thought it would be timely to provide a market update, and why some employers are bracing themselves for a difficult year recruiting student talent.

Fewer graduates than ever before

There are a few factors that come into play here, with covid having a large say. The restrictions on international students being able to enter Australia & New Zealand in the past two years has resulted in a decline in the number of students studying in both countries. That, coupled with recent trends signalling that both Australia & NZ looks to have hit their peak in university enrollment.

As you can see in the below graph, domestic student completions in Australia seem to have topped out in 2017.

This follows a similar trendline to America, which we spoke about last year in our Graduate Market Insights Webinar.

More employers hiring

Macro trends will likely play a big part when hiring graduates in 2022. There have never been so many employers hiring graduates, with more than 800 large employers hiring graduates in Australia and over 400 graduate employers in New Zealand. We’ve seen this transpire first hand at Prosple, with a steady increase of new market entrants as a result of employers wanting more skilled employees in hard to recruit areas like cyber security, data science and engineering. On top of that, a recent survey by the AAGE showed that 56% of employer members were expecting to hire more graduates in 2023 than in 2022. This, coupled with lower completion rates will likely culminate in a supply squeeze for talent.

Source: 2022 AAGE Market Snapshot Survey

Fewer students searching for jobs

Google search data is a useful indicator of interest in particular trends, including whether or not students are searching for jobs.

As you can see below, searches in Australia and New Zealand for the term “graduate jobs” have decreased in interest in recent years.

Australia

New Zealand

Source: Google trends data

What can grad recruiters do to increase application numbers?

Luckily for graduate recruiters, there are a plethora of options out there to increase employer branding and attract more applications. Job boards such as GradAustralia.com.au and GradNewZealand.nz are still the most popular resources among students when searching for work. There are also physical career fairs, virtual career fairs, and university job boards. We recommend adopting a blended approach - ensuring your opportunities are accessible for students no matter where they look.

For employers looking to get a little creative, we would suggest opening up applications for students outside of university. TAFEs and Polytechnics are rising in popularity as a great source for diverse talent, as well as alternative educators like General Assembly.

If your organisation is looking to increase its employer branding to attract more applications, book a strategy session with one of our Graduate Attraction Consultants today.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to get in touch on [email protected].