Jobs for graduates difficult to find on home turf

GRADUATES' chances of finding employment in their native county in the year after leaving college is not a birthright, they quickly discover.

They meet with only varying degrees of success in landing their first job in their home county.

While Dubliners have a first- class chance of getting employment in the capital, others are more likely to have to break their county ties in search of work.

Some 94pc of honours degree graduates from Dublin find a job in the county within nine months. By comparison, the national average is for only one in three graduates (34pc) to find employment in their home county in the same period.

At the bottom of the league when it comes to getting a job at home are graduates from Roscommon (16pc) and Meath (15pc).

Dublin's capacity to hold on to its graduates comes as no surprise as it has more graduate jobs than the number of graduates it produces from within its own ranks.

Cork (67pc), Galway (57pc) and Limerick (53pc) -- counties with major urban centres -- also hold on to relatively high proportions of their graduates.

Each of those three counties has a university and a concentration of high-value employment offering a range of opportunities for graduates

Natives of 22 other counties don't share the same opportunity of getting a job on their home turf.

Snapshot

The 'What Graduates Do: The Class of 2008' report from the Higher Education Authority provides a snapshot of the employment fate of graduates nine months after leaving college.

Almost 4,500 with honours bachelor degrees, representing 40pc of the class of 2008, responded to the survey.

The report focuses on graduates from third-level colleges in the Republic, who were working in the Republic. It does not include graduates gaining employment outside the 26 counties.

Meath, the county with the lowest retention rate of its own graduates, may find that they travel only short distances to neighbouring north Kildare's high-tech hub, based around Maynooth, Leixlip and Celbridge, or Dublin, for work.

The figure for Wicklow is also a lowly 19pc, which is also likely to be accounted for by a high proportion of graduates travelling to Dublin for work.

- KATHERINE DONNELLY

Irish Independent