Back on track

New MBA graduates enjoyed the benefits of a rebounding job market in 2011, according to the latest business school employment data gathered by the FT.

Almost 87 per cent of job-seeking alumni from the class of 2011 found work within three months of graduation. Based on information from institutions that took part in the 2012 Global MBA ranking, the latest figures represent an increase of 3.5 percentage points on data for 2010, well above the five-year low recorded in 2009 (79 per cent).

The peaks and troughs witnessed since 2007 have varied between regions. Alumni of schools in the Asia-Pacific region have ­consistently enjoyed the highest rates of employment in the three months after graduation. Almost 95 per cent of graduates in 2011 had found a job within this time, buoyed by near-universal ­employment for alumni of India-based business schools.

Graduates in the US have fared less well. In 2009, as the impact of the financial crisis hit, close to a quarter of graduates took longer than three months to secure post-MBA employment, a dramatic reduction on the 91 per cent of graduates in a job within three months seen just two years earlier. Nonetheless, prospects have ­improved in the past two years, with 86 per cent of alumni of US schools in employment three months after graduation.

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