Now that the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments are over, the next annual spring fever can officially begin, as college graduates compete for coveted post-degree jobs.
Although it's early in the season, the game looks tougher nationally than locally. At least one survey shows that fewer than a fourth of college graduates nationwide know where they'll be working after they get their diploma.
Employers are said to be more selective and less willing to train new hires and in a way are banking on recent layoffs to find skilled employees.
But an informal survey of career-placement officers around Utah shows a slight increase in recruiting and job opportunities surfacing for graduates this year. The number of summer jobs appears to be down, as are the number of internships. But the news is still good, especially in light of a sputtering economy and a new downsizing bug that is infecting companies.
Collegegrad.com, an Internet company that tracks job opportunities for new graduates, reports that in a survey of 2,100 colleges and universities, only 21 percent of college seniors had accepted a job offer by spring break.
"That's over 1,200,000 college seniors who are still looking for a job," said director Brian Krueger. "That is a huge number of jobs which need to be created and filled within the next two to three months."
The majors with the most jobs available include computer science and business, while humanities and other liberal arts majors had acceptance rates lower than average.
"The slowing economy is going to make this year a more difficult year to locate an entry-level position," Krueger said. "Students should be nearing successful completion of their job search, but many haven't even started."
The notable blip on the survey was in Utah, according to Krueger. The state reports about 60 percent of graduating seniors either had jobs lined up or had job interviews scheduled. And most said they had every indication they would find work related to their study field.
Placement counselors at universities say that sounds about right to them.
Dave Hart, director of career services at Utah State University, said job prospects seem to be panning out as they have over the past 10 years. "I follow the stock market like everyone else, and we're watching things, but we just haven't seen any drop-off in placements or recruiting," Hart said.
USU's most recent annual survey of graduates shows that nine months after graduation, they had a 1.9 percent overall unemployment rate, probably the lowest in the state. And 88 percent were in jobs related to their field of study. "There was a time when many students couldn't find work in their fields, but that hasn't been happening for the last 10 to 12 years," Hart said.
The only notable statistical change in job forecasting and actual job placement, he said, is that clearly more people are staying in Utah after college. This past year, about 70 percent of the graduates took jobs here, he noted.
That is an indication that Utah's economy, which was strong even before things took off nationally 10 years ago, is still humming, Hart and other career-placement watchers said.
But some career counselors say the economy can be both a curse and a blessing, with the widespread desire to stay in Utah ultimately limiting the range of good jobs for graduates.
"Despite what some surveys are saying, the jobs are out there, and even better ones than usual for humanities and liberal-arts graduates," said Pat Wheeler, a career and employment adviser at Weber State University. "But so many students here are settled with families and want to stay, they kind of limit their possibilities. Plus, the work force here is pretty educated anyway, and that makes the market tougher."
But neither Wheeler nor Stan Inman, associate director of career placement services at the University of Utah, have observed a decline in the number of companies who want to conduct interviews on campus.
"The downturn in the economy hasn't had an impact on our placements or employer interest this year," Inman said. "Maybe we're behind the curve there, but we're getting good placements across the board."
Lloyd Hawkins, coordinator of engineering, technology and science placement at Brigham Young University, said the market doesn't seem to have quite the momentum it did, a slowing he said he first started noticing about 15 months ago.
"But we're still talking about students having four or five offers instead of 10, so things could be worse," he said. However, he added, when layoffs are occurring at huge companies such as Chrysler and Motorola, "there will be some kind of chain reaction. I think things will get a little worse before they get better, but time will tell."
In Utah, there is a curious disconnect in the economy, said Thayne Robson, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the U. Even though the economy is slowing, the unemployment rate is as low as it's ever been, Robson said. "That means we're in pretty good shape. Labor markets are still tight at 4.2 percent nationally and 3.3 percent in Utah. So it's hard for me to think that there is a great problem facing graduating students."
The state is still expecting to get 25,000 to 27,000 new jobs this year. Most of those jobs are in the service sector, spun off by the effort to get ready for the the Winter Olympics next February, Robson said. But finance, insurance, real-estate, transportation, utility and energy areas will also provide opportunities.
With many dot-com companies becoming dot-bombs in recent months, high-technology fields are shifting. "This year particularly, people in those fields will not get signing bonuses and won't be actively recruited as they were in the past. But opportunities are still there," Robson said.
Robson said that among the strongest job candidates are liberal-arts grads who can speak the language of computers, because they can act as liaisons between technical staff and senior managers. In the next few years, as DNA research becomes an even hotter field, the demand for biologists, chemists, food scientists and medical researchers will dramatically increase.
Employers are being very specific about what they want this spring, and so are students, career counselors said. Graduates in 2001 are, for the first time, not only looking for a job and security, they want something that provides significant time off or at least a flexible work schedule.
Wheeler said that according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, only 13 percent would choose to work for a dot-com, while 42 percent would prefer to work for a Fortune 500 company. That survey, plus her work on campus, show that leisure time is highly valued by today's graduates, Wheeler said. "Compared to earlier generations when the job was all important, money is not a high value. Prestige, independence and the desire not to work for someone else are becoming very important."
Despite the slowing economy, companies are engaging in "skill replacement," according to Phil Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, as reported by The Associated Press. "Firms need a different mix of employees, so they're laying off at one end and hiring at the other."
New hires will benefit to the tune of nearly $40,000 a year. For the first time, the average starting salary for new graduates across all fields is bumping up against that level, and compensation has been rising a bit faster than the rate of inflation.
"Employers would love to keep salary increases closer to inflation," said Gardner, and the economic slowdown will give them some help. Nonetheless, engineers and computer-science grads are in short supply, so job seekers in those fields are still able to command salaries approaching $50,000.
Gardner and other career advisers recommend that if students haven't visited a placement office on campus yet, they should do so immediately. Those offices have access to job opportunities that students don't. Also, thousands of jobs are listed on Web sites such as www.collegegrad.com.
Contributing: Associated Press
E-MAIL: jthalman@desnews.com