The graduate employment market is depressed, writes Emmet Oliver, Education Correspondent

There are several factors which bear on someone's choice of a college course. While everyone likes to pay homage to the idea of education for education's sake, students understandably want to know about the employment prospects after their years of study. Students and parents looking over this year's CAO handbook need to consider a range of factors when making their choice. The question of jobs is obviously only one factor. But second guessing what courses are likely to provide decent employment opportunities down the line is an inexact science.

What might appear to be a dead-end course in 2002 could be at the forefront of a technological revolution three or four years from now. The opposite also applies, what might seem like an inspired choice now could turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes of your life a few years hence.

The current graduate employment market is certainly depressed. The evidence is clear. The rate of graduate unemployment, while still extremely low, has started to rise in several colleges for the first time in years.

Recruitment fairs on campus, which give an indication of how many companies are actively recruiting, have been cancelled in some colleges and severely curtailed in others. Careers officers in the seven universities and the 13 institutes of technology are trying to remain upbeat, but the picture is grim compared to three or four years ago. Nobody is suggesting that a massive rise in graduate unemployment is on the way, but there is a general feeling that students will have to downgrade their expectations.

The recent announcement by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, of a cap on public service numbers has added to the prevailing sense of gloom. The budget announcement does not mean no recruitment can take place in the civil service or across the public sector. For example, the civil service is expected to hold a competition this year for grades such as administrative officer, executive officer and third secretary.

But the number of posts available in 2003 will no doubt be down on previous years and the number of jobs going forward, across the civil service and public sector, is likely to be a fraction of what was on offer in the mid-1990s. The computer industry is continuing to suffer from a global slump and while there are some faint signs of recovery in the US, most of the major Irish-based IT companies are not hiring, at least not to any significant degree.

Many of them were absent from this year's recruitment fairs and "milk rounds". Those events were mainly the preserve of traditional Irish firms, students report.

Loretta Jennings, careers and appointments officer at NUI Maynooth, says things are tough for those hoping to enter the IT industry, but there are still plenty of opportunities, with banks and finance houses still recruiting large numbers of IT graduates.

She says those who select an IT course do so because they are really committed to the area and have an aptitude, not because it's fashionable. Along with others, she says: What when the IT sector recovers? And surely it must, so there will be a huge appetite among employers for IT graduates.

Looking through the figures produced by the universities in particular, the jobs market would want to seriously collapse before we reach the bad old days of the 1980s.

At present universities are reporting unemployment rates among their graduates of less than 2 per cent in most faculties. This rate falls even further if you examine figures for post-graduate students.

Colm Tobin, UCD's careers and appointments officer, says jobs are still plentiful, but students need to work harder to get them. "It is no use only working on your career plans in the last few weeks of college; students need to put in the work early in their college careers and stay in touch with the careers and appointments office on a regular basis," he says.

Many colleges now operate work experience programmes - DCU's Intra programme is a good example - where students can get hands-on experience in their area of study. This is often the moment when a student finally decides if a certain area is really for them. In recent years job trends have fluctuated, but the picture most years is predictable enough. Healthcare courses, such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary and phsiotherapy provide good secure employment and the rate of unemployment within this group is normally nil, although a large section chose to go abroad for the initial part of the careers.

With the amount of Government spending on health rising, the number of jobs in medicine and related areas is probably going to grow further.

Engineering is another area where jobs have been plentiful over recent years. Civil engineering, in particular, was once in serious decline, but has now become a lucrative sector. Unemployment is rare, but things may change in the years ahead. Some parents have a pre-conception that arts graduates have the hardest time getting a job, but the figures show this is not the case. For example, in the latest figures for UCD, there was a higher rate of graduate unemployment in science than arts. Arts graduates have the widest range of possible careers and this proved popular with students last year. "The student who is still not sure or definite about what they want to do, should consider arts, because doing arts closes off no options, whereas other courses do," commented one careers officer.

Second-level teaching (via a higher diploma in education) is obviously a popular option for arts students, but there is a whole lot more to be considered. For example, management consultancy, economics, psychology, customer service, public relations, social work, sales and marketing, advertising, travel and tourism and the civil service.

Science has been less of a happy hunting ground for students in recent years, with a large number choosing to stay on take a post-graduate course. However, the growth of the pharmaceutical industry has created enormous job opportunities for science graduates. The Wyeth bio-pharma project at Grange Castle in north Co Dublin is relevant in this context, with the company planning to recruit 1,300 people, many of them science graduates. Law is another area with little graduate unemployment and courses which combine law with another specialism - for example, the business and legal studies degree at UCD - have proved very popular in recent years.