{"id":82898,"date":"2025-07-22T10:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T10:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/82898\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T10:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T10:07:08","slug":"graduate-employment-outcomes-from-frances-grandes-ecoles-strong-results-despite-a-temporary-dip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/82898\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate employment outcomes from France\u2019s Grandes \u00c9coles: strong results despite a temporary dip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 32nd edition of this annual employment survey was conducted between December 2023 and March 2024. As the CGE notes, participation was &#8220;widespread&#8221;, with 199 out of 203 institutions (98%) reaching out to their recent graduates. The result: <strong>103,568 usable responses<\/strong>, enabling a detailed and reliable picture of graduate outcomes. The CGE emphasizes that such &#8220;broad participation from institutions&#8221; leads to &#8220;more accurate data, as each school has its own specific profile and context&#8221;. Results present a detail of very interesting profiles in terms of employment.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Employment Rates Vary by Field of Study<\/p>\n<p>According to the President of the CGE, last year\u2019s figures (2023) were unusually high due to post-COVID catch-up effects, while this year\u2019s results reflect a return to pre-pandemic levels. Despite <strong>economic headwinds and reduced hiring, particularly for executive roles<\/strong>, graduates from the class of 2023 are still integrating into the job market at a very strong rate (<strong>85.8%<\/strong>, down 4.7 points from the previous year).<\/p>\n<p>The drop varies across disciplines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Engineering graduates show the highest resilience<\/strong>, with a net employment rate of 89.6% (down just 3.5 points);<\/li>\n<li>Graduates from other disciplines come in at 81.5% (\u22124.5 points), and Business school graduates (managers) see the sharpest decline, at 81.2% (\u22126.5 points).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Quick Recruitment<\/p>\n<p>In terms of hiring timelines, recruitment remains quick for all types of schools, though slightly less so than last year (84.6% versus 86.6%).<\/p>\n<p>Still, <strong>more than eight in ten graduates were hired within two months<\/strong>. The pace is strong across the board: 86.5% of engineering graduates, 82.3% of management graduates, and 79.7% of graduates from other fields were recruited within two months of graduating.<strong> A large portion even signed their contracts before finishing school: 66.9% of graduates had secured employment before graduation, close to last year\u2019s record (68.6%)<\/strong>, the highest in the past decade. Nearly all graduates (91%) are &#8220;working in jobs that they feel are aligned with their level of qualification&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of <strong>type of jobs<\/strong>, post graduates are salaried employees (97.4%). Employment is fairly evenly distributed among small (32.3%), medium (29.4%), and large companies (31.5%), which together account for the vast majority of hires. <strong>Permanent contracts have declined slightly<\/strong> (down 1.3 points) after two years of strong growth. The rate stands at 86.6% for engineers, 86% for managers, and 62.1% for other graduates. <strong>The proportion of executive positions<\/strong> remains high at 86.4%, and exceeds 90% for engineers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Managers earn more than engineers<\/p>\n<p>According to the CGE, the <strong>average gross annual salary<\/strong> (excluding bonuses) for graduates working in France is <strong>\u20ac39,010<\/strong>, an increase of 2.2% over the previous year. Salary growth is comparable for engineers (+2.4%) and managers (+2.3%). Graduates from other specializations, however, saw a slight decrease, earning on average 0.6% less than the previous year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Salaries favor management graduates.<\/strong> On average, they earn about \u20ac1,700 more per year (gross, excluding bonuses) than engineers, and \u20ac2,200 more than graduates from other specializations. <strong>While the gap with engineers is similar to last year, the difference has widened <\/strong>compared to other fields. When bonuses are included, the advantage becomes even more pronounced: nearly \u20ac4,400 more than engineers and over \u20ac5,200 more than other graduates.<\/p>\n<p>Employment location remains stable<\/p>\n<p>The share of graduates working abroad remains fairly steady: 11.1% last year, compared to 11.7% two years ago. <strong>Managers <\/strong>(14.8%) and <strong>graduates from other specializations<\/strong> (14%) are <strong>more likely to work internationally than engineers (9%)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Among French nationals, 8.4% are working abroad (3.6% in the EU and 4.8% outside it). On the other hand, the CGE notes that <strong>international graduates are more likely to take jobs outside France, with 27.2% employed abroad\u201411.9% in the EU and 15.3% outside it. In most of these cases (58%), it\u2019s a return to their country of origin after completing studies in France.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Domestic employment remains <strong>concentrated in the \u00cele-de-France region<\/strong>, especially for <strong>managers and graduates from other specializations<\/strong>. According to the survey, <strong>nearly three-quarters of all graduate positions in France are based there, while 61.3% of engineers work in other regions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Strong employment outcomes for women, especially female engineers<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>employment rate for men stands at 87.6%, compared to 83.3% for women\u2014a gender gap of 4.3 percentage points<\/strong>, wider than last year\u2019s 3.2-point difference. Among women, <strong>engineering graduates show the best outcomes, with an employment rate of 88.1%<\/strong> and the smallest gender gap (2.2 points). In other disciplines, the difference is larger: women report an employment rate of 80.3% in other specializations and 79.6% in management.<\/p>\n<p>Hiring is quick for both men and women: 83.4% of women and 85.3% of men found a job within two months of graduation. However, there are <strong>disparities in job characteristics<\/strong>. Women are less likely to have permanent contracts and are less often employed in executive roles. <strong>Salary gaps persist<\/strong> as well: men\u2019s average gross salary (excluding bonuses) is 5.2% higher than women\u2019s, although this difference is gradually narrowing.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Few Unemployed Graduates, Few Continuing Their Studies<\/p>\n<p>According to the 2024 survey, <strong>12.2% of graduates are currently job-seeking<\/strong>, a rise of 3.9 points compared to last year\u2019s low of 8.3%. The CGE attributes this to a slowdown in the demand for executive roles in late 2023 and early 2024\u2014just as the new graduates entered the job market.<\/p>\n<p>Some of those not yet employed are pursuing further study, <strong>though this remains a minority. <\/strong>Only 3.7% of the 2023 cohort are preparing for a PhD\u20146.3% among engineers, and far fewer among other graduates. Most PhD candidates are engineers, who represent 93.7% of those pursuing a doctorate. Among them, one in three (35.8%) is a woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 32nd edition of this annual employment survey was conducted between December 2023 and March 2024. As the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":82899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,420,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-82898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114896335229036396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}