Corporate America is laying out the welcome mat for the nation’s 1.4 million college seniors, creating the strongest job market for graduates since 2001.
Employment experts credit a relatively robust economy and job openings created as baby boomers begin to retire.
“I was lucky,” said Roman Yavich, 22, who received three job offers after graduating this month with a finance degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “I came out of school in a good job market.”
Two-thirds of U.S. companies plan to hire more graduates in 2006 thanthey planned a year ago, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That will translate into 14.5 percent more jobs for college graduates this year than in 2005.
Among the major U.S. companies with operations in Colorado to announce hiring plans is Lockheed Martin, which plans to hire 4,400 entry-level workers nationwide this year.
Union Pacific, the nation’s largest railroad, has said it will hire 5,000 workers nationwide in 2006. That includes 64 positions in Colorado that range from diesel mechanics to train engineers and conductors, said Mark Davis, a company spokesman.
Accounting, finance and engineering are among the white-collar fields drawing the most offers and sweetest salaries.
Graduates in those fields can expect to earn at least $45,000 annually to start, or about 5 percent more than a year ago, the survey showed.
Higher levels of education historically correlate with higher pay. Even so, during the first five years of this decade, including the 2001 recession, real wages for many stagnated or worse.
Between 2000 and 2004, real wages for workers with a bachelor’s degree declined by 5.2 percent on average, from $54,396 to $51,568, according to the 2006 Economic Report of the President.
Workers with high school degrees saw paychecks increase by 1.6 percent, from $28,179 to $28,631, according to the report, which used data supplied by the Department of Commerce.
Those figures – adjusted for inflation – do not include other benefits provided by employers, such as health care and retirement plans.
Inside are stories of recent graduates from Colorado universities in the fields of engineering, law and finance.
Flying high
Jennifer Hodge considers herself “very fortunate.”
“Some of my friends are still searching for jobs,” said Hodge, a recent Colorado State University engineering graduate.
The Littleton native avoided that problem, in part because her area of study is in demand.
Hodge, 22, landed a job in February as a systems engineer with Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems division in Jefferson County, where plans are to fill 100 or more jobs this year, depending on contracts, the company said.
Engineering graduates, especially those focused on aerospace, energy or defense, are seeing salary increases and strong demand for their services, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Hodge said she’ll draw an annual salary of more than $50,000, which is in line with national averages for entry-level engineers.
Two sides of the law
Kate Iverson was hired by Otten Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti in Denver 18 months before her graduation this weekend from the University of Denver.
“My sense is that it’s picking up,” said Iverson, 37. “You’re not hearing the horror stories any more about people not finding work and driving taxis.”
But Nanette Gonzales is still looking for work as a lawyer a year after graduating from DU.
Gonzales, 35, finished near the middle of her class. She’s halfway through a six- month fellowship at the 18th Judicial District, where she hopes to land a clerkship.
“I was very surprised,” she said. “I assumed that if you passed the bar, … it wouldn’t be so hard to find a job.”
At CU-Boulder, 97 percent of law students landed jobs within nine months of 2005 graduation, up from 93 percent in 2004. DU does not have figures for 2005. In 2004, 96.9 percent of its graduates found work in nine months.
Nationally, 89.6 percent of 2005 law school graduates found jobs in nine months, up from 88.9 percent in 2004, according to the National Association for Law Placement in Washington.
Two large Denver law firms reported slight growth in their new-graduate hires.
Holland & Hart is hiring 13 lawyers out of school this year, compared with 12 in 2005 and 11 in 2004. Holme Roberts & Owen expects to hire 15 or 16 recent graduates this year, up from 13 each of the past two years.
Pay is rising, too. The average entry-level salary at 18 large firms in Denver rose 5.5 percent in 2005 and is expected to jump 4.4 percent this year, to $111,000, according to NALP and DU.
Right on the money
A surge in mergers and acquisitions, a relatively strong market for initial public offerings and an aging U.S. population in need of financial advice are driving demand for up-and-coming financial professionals.
Yavich, the finance major from CU, had three job offers when he graduated earlier this month. He moved to the U.S. with his family from Ukraine in 1992.
One job would have sent Yavich to Los Angeles to work at a full-service investment bank. Another would have kept him in Denver at a boutique investment bank. The final position would have sent him to Wall Street, drawing an annual salary north of $60,000.
Despite the offers, Yavich selected his fourth choice: Nicaragua, where he will help develop environmentally sustainable tourism programs as a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship.
Yavich said of the 30 students in his senior-level investment banking seminar this spring, about 20 aspired to enter the field. Of those, he said all 20 received at least one job offer.
Staff writer Greg Griffin contributed to this report.
Top five entry-level employers for 2006
Company – No. of jobs
Enterprise Rent-A-Car 7,000
Lockheed Martin 4,400
Walgreens 4,300
PricewaterhouseCoopers 3,817
Deloitte & Touche 3,500
Top jobs (and their average starting salary) based on number of openings nationwide
Accounting (private) $45,817
Management trainee (entry-level) $38,482
Financial analysis $46,335
Sales $38,830
Project engineer $50,365
Consulting $50,120
Design/construction engineer $48,109
Accounting (public) $44,668
Teaching $30,377
Field engineering $50,812
Sources: collegegrad.com; National Association of Colleges and Employers
This story has been corrected in this online archive. Because of an editing error, the story originally gave the wrong time frame in comparing the strength of the current job market for college graduates. Survey data and interviews indicate it is the strongest market since 2001.
