Turnover for Recent College Hires Lowest Since 1992

This number is at its lowest point since 1992, according to the 2004 Employer Benchmark Survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). It is significantly lower than has been seen recently, with respondents to the survey in 2000 reporting a 9.6% turnover rate.

NACE attributes this low rate of turnover to the poor hiring markets of past years. The organization does not expect this trend to persist, as the job market becomes stronger and new college grads opt to move onto different jobs that are more readily available than in years past.

The NACE survey also shows that employers, when searching for recent grads, are conducting fewer interviews before choosing to hire. On average, employers interviewed 4.1 new college graduates to get one hire, which is down slightly from the 4.5 interviews reported in 2000.

NACE has also recently released the results of a survey on recent college graduate hiring rates of employers, stating that accountants, engineers, and those in the sciences are being hired at higher rates than other graduates (See Survey: College Hiring Up – Particularly Among Engineering Grads ).

The NACE ( www.naceweb.org ) survey is based on responses from 285 employer members. By sector, 49.5% of respondents were service employers, 38.2% were manufacturers, and 11.6% represented government/nonprofit organizations. Of all respondents, 0.7% could not be classified by sector.