This article is more than 1 year old

Computer grads can't even get jobs offering personal services

Media studies a better jobs bet

Computer science graduates have even less chance than media studies grads of being in gainful employment six months after leaving college, government figures show.

Latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show in 2008/2009, 1375 of the 8090 computer science students it could track down six months after graduation were twiddling their thumbs.

This left them with way more free time than their swotty friends who'd studied medicine and dentistry grads, all of whom were fully employed according to their figures. Even teachers were having to get up more often than computer jockeys, with 95 per cent of education grads working.

Law grads were only marginally behind the teachers, with a six per cent unemployment rate, and even biologists and linguists out stripped compsci grads, with just nine per cent unemployment.

Computer scientists were left to drown their sorrows - presumably in the park, with cider - with the 14 per cent of mass communications grads who had failed to score internships at their uncle's PR firms. Architecture, engineering, and creative arts all managed unemployment rates of 13 per cent, while the non-hit rate for business grads was 11 per cent.

Still, if there's one thing computer scientists know how to do, it's drill down into the figures. Of those techies that did find work, well over 3,000 were in either professional or associate professional or technical jobs. Another 735 were in "sales and customer service jobs" while a puzzling 80 were listed as working in "personal services".

This compares with the 4000 working lawyers, of whom 925 were in sales and customer services, and a cracking 165 peddling "personal services". And if the thought of those 165 law grads isn't scary enough, almost 2000 biologists were listed as working in the "personal services" industry. ®

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