Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Tracking graduate outcomes is crucial to monitoring and improving the quality and outcomes for learners in higher education.

There are two key sources of data in this regard. The Higher Education Outcomes data, published annually by the Central Statistics Office tracks the destinations and earnings of graduates by linking student records from the Higher Education Authority with administrative data from the Revenue Commissioners.

Separately, the Graduate Outcomes Survey is a nationally representative annual survey of graduates from the Higher Education Institutions, administered by the Higher Education Authority.

The specific indicators in these two publications varies slightly, as might be expected given the different ways in which the data are compiled, but the key trends are consistent and complementary.

There has been strong growth in employment outcomes. The most recent CSO data, from 2022, indicates that the rate of employment one year after graduation grew from 66% for 2010 graduates to 83% for 2018 graduates, based on a reference year of 2020.

The impact of COVID was evident for graduates in 2019. The CSO indicates that 80% of these graduates were in employment one year after graduation compared to 83% for graduates in the previous year. Analysis shows that 15% of 2019 graduates entered the professional, scientific and technical areas such as law, and accounting. 12% entered employment in education, 12% in Health and Social work and 8% into industry. However, given the strong labour market, it would be expected that when data for graduates from 2020 and later years is published by the CSO, employment rates will be equal to or above the pre-pandemic rates.

This is also borne out by the trends in the HEA data. The Class of 2020 experienced a decrease in the employment rate from the Class of 2018. However, there has been a significant rebound for the class of 2021, which shows the graduate employment rate since the survey began (with 82% in employment).

The HEA data indicate that the proportion of graduates pursuing further study has decreased to 12% in 2021, down from 14% in 2020. This reflects a growing number of graduates going straight into employment post-graduation.

For the class of 2021, 4% of graduates are unemployed nine months after graduation, compared to 8% in 2020. Employment is highest for Education graduates (94.2%) and lowest for Arts & Humanities graduates (65%).

The overall picture is reflective of the strong labour market for recent graduates, and shows little evidence of a lasting Covid impact on employment outcomes.