When universities closed their doors in March of last year, the class of 2020 faced an uncertain job market, forcing many students to pivot.
Nearly half of 2020 college graduates were still looking for work as of spring 2021, according to a Monster survey. And while efforts to reopen the economy look promising, this year’s college graduates expect to spend roughly five months scouring the job market for a new position.
Some industries, however, are looking to hire large numbers of new college graduates. Adzuna, a search engine for job-seekers, analyzed over 6.3 million job listings to find entry-level positions and then analyzed the salaries for those positions. The data also includes positions for individuals without a formal degree.
Adzuna found over 63,000 job openings available for new graduates in the U.S., paying an average salary of $57,000 per year. For post-grads, the labor market appears to be more competitive and more lucrative, with only 6,500 jobs available. Post-grads can expect to make an average salary of $72,000 a year.
“We’re seeing over double the number of opportunities for graduates this summer than last year,” Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, tells CNBC Make It. “Compared to 12 months ago, the jobs market is much busier, helped by the vaccine rollout and growing economic confidence, leading to the number of advertised jobs increasing 125% over the same period.”
During the pandemic, some sectors like logistics and warehousing; manufacturing; trade and construction; IT and sales, boomed. And according to new insight from Adzuna, these industries have more openings for new grads, with health care topping the list in terms of entry-level positions.
These are the top 10 industries looking to hire college grads, according to Adzuna’s June 2021 data:
- Health care and nursing
- Logistics and warehouse
- IT
- Sales
- Engineering
- Accounting and finance
- Human resources and recruitment
- Manufacturing
- Customer services
- Scientific and quality assurance
“The number of opportunities for graduates within health care and nursing substantially outstrips all other sectors,” Hunter says. Adzuna found more than 19,000 vacancies in each of these industries.
In the health-care sector, an increased general demand over the past 16 months forced many health specialists to leave their jobs, according to Hunter. The sector also faces an existing talent shortage, exacerbated by the pandemic, and burnout among health specialists, some of whom now need to be replaced.
“Registered nurses are in hot demand, but opportunities also exist for pharmacists, data specialists and clinical research associates,” Hunter says. “While many of these opportunities require specialist degrees, some business, analysis and operation roles are worth considering for grads without a medical specialism.”
Of the data collected, degreeless job seekers are also in demand for wider entry-level opportunities, with more than 319,000 job listings available.
For degreeless workers, Adzuna searched for jobs containing the phrase ‘entry-level.’ For recent college grads, the site combined data from searches for ‘entry-level graduate’ positions, jobs for ‘new graduates’ and openings for ‘recent graduates.’
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