Overseas Graduates Paid More?

The following is a press statement from Jobstreet.com with regards to a study conducted which showed that graduates of overseas universities fair better than local grads in salary scale. I must say, the results didn't come as too much of a surprise, although I'd be keen to obtain the methodology and sample data for further analysis.

But before you read on, please bear in mind that these studies provide the "generalised" results i.e., there are always exceptions. You will find plenty of local graduates who are extremely competent and who may be making a lot of money in wages in contrast to some of the overseas graduates. However, as a whole, that may not be the case.

(Just to also point out that while was I an employer, more than 80% of my employees were hired as fresh graduates, of whom, the overwhelming majority of them were local graduates. While it was tough picking out quality graduates, they were certainly there if you look hard enough.)

Kian Ming has also written his views on the often heated subject of "local vs foreign graduates" here.

Here's the press release from Jobstreet:

In a 2008 study of more than 100,000 JobStreet.com members in Malaysia who hold a Bachelors degree and are currently working in the country, JobStreet.com has observed that graduates from overseas universities on average earn about 12 percent more than local graduates.

The salary gap is most apparent among those with up to five years of work experience.

Overseas graduates are earning a significant 20 percent more than their local counterparts. Even after 10 years or more of work experience, the gap is still more than 10 percent.

In terms of job specialization, the biggest salary gap between overseas and local graduates is in business-related fields such as management, economics, finance and marketing where overseas graduates earn about 15 percent more than local graduates.

In the engineering and IT/Computer fields, salaries are about 11 percent higher for overseas graduates.

In a similar study among 20,000 JobStreet.com members in Singapore, it was observed that there is no significant difference between the salaries of graduates from local Singaporean universities and overseas universities even after 5 or 10 years of work experience.

In conclusion, a Malaysian who graduates from a local Malaysian university earns on average a lower salary than those who graduate from an overseas university. There were no significant difference in salaries that exists among graduates in Singapore.

The final conclusion is equally unsurprising, but its a new angle to look at for it certainly demonstrates the disparity between our local versus Singapore's universities.