Labour Research May 2001

Features: Equality News

Graduate employment

Official figures published last month by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) show that black and ethnic minority graduates are less likely to be in work six months after leaving higher education than white graduates.

The HEFCE performance indicators showed that 94.1% of last year's graduates were in work or undertaking further study by January this year. Yet for black African graduates the figure was only 87%, for Bangladeshi graduates it was 88.4% and for Pakistani graduates it was 89%. For black Caribbean graduates the percentage in employment was 90.7%, for Indian graduates it was 91.7%, while 94.6% of white university leavers had got jobs or moved into further study.

Women were more likely to be employed (95.3%) than men (92.6%).