US employers plan to hire 16.6% more college grads from the class of 2019 than they did from the prior year’s class, according to the fall Job Outlook 2019 survey released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This year marks the best initial hiring outlook since the class of 2007 and follows an outlook in spring of last year that reported an overall hiring decrease of 1.3% for class of 2018 graduates.
This year, the percentage of responding organizations that plan to increase their hires decreased to 38.6% from 43.7% in the year-ago survey. However, those maintaining their numbers rose to 57.4% from 46.7% and only 4.0% plan to cut their number of hires, down from 9.6% and the smallest group with these plans in the past seven years.
Employers that expect to increase their new college hiring cited an improved economy, company growth, anticipated retirements and a focus on early talent/succession planning. Several others in this group reported that they plan to concentrate on converting more interns to full-time hires, thus increasing their overall hiring numbers.
The employers surveyed were members of NACE. The survey is conducted in two parts: fall and spring. This release is based on data collected from Aug. 1 through Oct. 8 from 172 NACE-member organizations.