Recent science and engineering graduates are entering a better job market than reports on two national surveys might indicate. A 25% percent decline in job offers to the class of 1987, reported by the College Placement Council, is in part the result of an 11 percent decline in the number of placement offices that participated in its 27th annual salary survey. Likewise, a 12 percent decline in job offers to the class of 1986, reported by the 1987 Northwestern Endicott-Lindquist survey of 230 U.S. businesses, must be balanced by a 25 percent increase in acceptances by those same graduates.
The decline in job offers was reported in Science (December 4, 1987, vol. 238, p. 1426) by Eleanor Babco, whose Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology each year reports on dozens of salary surveys. Hut the placement survey's Dawn Gulick played down the job offer statistics.
The groups survey, based ...
