From school to work: The evolution of early labour market outcomes of Canadian postsecondary graduates

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the early labour market outcomes of Canadian postsecondary graduates based on the National Graduates Surveys, representing those who finished their college or university programs in 1982, 1986 and 1990. The major findings include that postsecondary graduates have generally been doing quite well as a group, with most finding full-time and permanent jobs, receiving reasonably high earnings, and otherwise successfully moving into the labour market according to the various outcomes measured here; that the school-to-work transition is clearly a process, rather than an event, with most outcomes improving significantly from two to five years following graduation; that these outcomes vary by level (College, Bachelor's, Master's, PhD) and sex; and that successive cohorts of graduates did not experience any widespread decline in their labour market fortunes over this period.