Charlie Ryan says: “There are a number of reasons for the drop in graduate retention at the end of their second year and this reflects the fact that in many cases “any” degree was considered even if it wasn’t relevant to the subject or job and then the individual didn’t have the same desire or commitment to stay in the role or industry. They probably felt that at the end of year 2 they had some decent work experience, enabling the decision making process of what they really wanted to do. I think there will always be an element of this, as the need to get a graduate job is greater than the thought often given to the long term career. But I would suggest one of the biggest reasons is the fact that there are fewer graduate placements coming through in the last year and therefore companies have not been embracing the same level of intake numbers, which in turn stops these earlier graduates moving up and leaving is the only way to better themselves where before they would have moved on internally. I am also wondering if Brexit had an impact last year when there were a number of redundancies and an immediate reduction in recruitment until the economy settled a little in October/November time, could also account for this. Any uncertainty in the company could have made more graduates leave than normal and explore other opportunities. I think it would be interesting to compare this number against the numbers of the intake in the direct year following, as I think you will find it is this decrease year on year which is having the delayed impact”
Comments based on this article: The Times
