HKU graduates continue to achieve full employment for 15 consecutive years with the highest average monthly salary among local universities
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has released its Graduate Employment Survey for 2020. Despite notable pressure in the job market, full employment was achieved among Bachelor’s Degree graduates. For those who sought employment, the employment rate was 98.7%. Unemployment rate remained very low at 1.3%.
HKU continued to rank first with the highest employment rate and average salary among the UGC-funded universities.
Among the 3,219 graduates who responded to the Graduate Employment Survey conducted between October 2020 and February 2021, over three-fourths of graduates (75.1%) were employed, 21.3% decided to pursue further studies, showing an upward trend which is in line with graduates’ inclination to strengthen their competitiveness through higher education before kick-starting their career. Those who had returned to their home cities or for other reasons not pursuing a career in Hong Kong was 2.6%.
The average monthly salary of our graduates had increased by 2.9% to HK$27,956, while the median monthly salary increased by 4.1% to HK$22,000.
Commerce and Industry remained to be the largest employment sector (50.3%), with the average monthly salary of graduates in the section increasing by 2.6% from HK$22,040 in 2019 to HK$22,606 in 2020.
There is also a rising trend in salary for graduates taking up jobs in emerging fields like digital marketing. A significant rise of 8.8% in average monthly salary (from HK$35,708 to HK$38,868) was also recorded in the Community, Social and Personal Services sector.
“Our graduates’ high employability is reflected on international standards. The University ranked number 9 in the 2020 QS Graduate Employability Rankings, rising steadily from the past three years and the highest amongst all local universities. Despite a challenging year, we maintain a positive outlook and expect our graduates will continue to enjoy a very high level of employability on leaving campus this year,” said Professor Samson Tse, Dean of Student Affairs, HKU.
“Employers have been very active in joining HKU’s campus recruitment activities and continue to regard HKU students and graduates as their top choice. Even amidst COVID-19, our Virtual Career Fair earlier this year had attracted 144 employers to join, offering over 2,200 graduates and internship vacancies to our students and graduates. Our job board NETjobs also recorded an optimistic rise in employers’ usage, with an increase of over 43% of employers posting 32% more vacancies in comparison with last year. Overall, an upward trend of campus recruitment events in HKU is anticipated,” said Ms Jaime Fung, Director of Careers and Placement at HKU.