Economic Graduates in the Labour Market
| Published date | 01 June 1956 |
| Author | Hilda R. Kahn |
| Date | 01 June 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1956.tb00816.x |
kONOMlC
GRADUATES
IN
THE
LABOUR
MARKET'
IrJ
the spring of
1955
the Department of Social and Economic Research
conducted an inquiry among recent Economics graduates of Glasgow
University to find out what kinds of employment they had found. what
difficulties they had encountered in obtaining jobs, how many had
gone into industry, and other related information. Questionnaires,
with a covering letter from Professor
A.
K.
Cairncross.
were sent
to
graduates who had attended
Honours
classes in Political Economy
during
1950, 1951
and
1952-124
in
all. Eighty-five per
cent.
replied,
yielding
103
forms suitable for analysis
;
of
these. ninety-twc were
completed by men and eleven
by
women.
The majority of the graduates (sixty-six) bad taken the
Honours
Group
'
Political Economy with Political
Science
*,
but seventeen had
read
'
Geography with Political Economy
'
and the remaining twenty
had taken various other combinations
;
the group is thus not entirely
homogeneous. Fifty-six of the
103
are
known
to
have undertaken some
form
of
further study
or
training after graduation.
TABLE
I
OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION,
MARCH
-
APRIL
1955
Field
of
employment
~ ~~ ~
Industfy, ,commerce
.......
Teachmg
.........
Government
service:
national.
local,
overseas
.
.
Law,
accountancy, insurance
.....
Journalism
.........
Miscellaneous
'
........
Total.
....
Number
32
26
14
10
7
14
103
Academic. including
research
(four);
other
teaching (twenty-two).
'
Including five
in
the
6dd
of
psychology.
Table
I
sets out the present employment distribution of the sample
;
the only significant change in the
type
of
job
chosen over the
three
years
is
a fairly substantial decline
in
the proportion becoming teachers.
The thirty-two graduates
in
industry and commerce include at least
seven in production, production engineering or work
study,
three
on
the sales side.
three
buyers and one
on
personnel work. There
are,
in
A
limited number
of
copies
of
the
full
report on
this
inquiry
are
available,
and may be obtained on application
to
the
Social
and Economic
Rcstarch
Department
of
the University
of
Glasgow.
11*
165
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