More jobs for students, but most part-time

Posted by the Silicon Valley/ San Jose Business Journal Aug. 13, 2012.

By Moryt Milo, Editor

San Jose State University has released its Job Development Report for 2011-2012, and it’s good news for recent grads. At least better news compared to the prior year.

This report dives into employer recruitment efforts in Silicon Valley and points out that most employers are looking for interns, part-time, seasonal and temps for hire.

Still in this area the increase was significant, up 31 percent compared to the prior year. And newly minted grads shouldn’t turn those opportunities down, if it’s a way to get a foot in the door.

The pay for those positions also increased to $16 per hour up from $14 per hour, due to strong competition for talent. But if that were full-time dollars it would only equate to $33,280. In Silicon Valley that would be a real struggle, especially with average rents over $2,000 per month. But that is part-time dollars.

No surprise that the majority of full-time jobs posted were for students graduating from the College of Business at SJSU. The business school had the highest percentage of employer listings at 21.66 percent. But the College of Applied Sciences and Arts was right behind it with 21.56.

The career center reported that more than 10,000 students, who took advantage of the university’s career services during the 2011-2012, found some form of work.

It helps that the economy has turned around and employers are looking to hire. In fact, the comprehensive 24-page report takes a look at the economic landscape, and concludes that if hiring continues at its current pace, unemployment in Santa Clara County could drop to 6.3 percent by June 2013. This 1.9 percent drop is based on where the county was on June 2011 at 10.1 percent to May 2012 at 8.2 percent.

The university also saw a 44 percent increase in employer attendance at the job fairs compared to a year ago.

There was an increase in large employers coming to campus to recruit this year, but it was the small-and medium-size businesses that were looking for hard to find tech talent and students with marketing/advertising and sales skills who had a strong emphasis in social media.

The hot market resulted in more 13,00 job postings (full-time, part time, internships, seasonal) at the career center, which, equated to more than $132 million of available income, the study stated.

Click here to view the complete report.