JOB MARKET: A Tough Year to Launch a Career

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JOB MARKET

HUNTING season opens on U.S. campuses this month as thousands of corporate recruiters begin their annual quest to sign up the best managerial and technical talent from the graduating class. At some schools, according to college placement officers, recruiting should rise slightly from 1971's recession-pinched level. But graduates will still find this a difficult year in which to launch a career.

Of 185 major corporations surveyed by Northwestern University, more than half said that they intend to offer jobs to more bachelor's degree holders than they did last year. On that basis, Northwestern's Frank S. Endicott, who has reported on corporate recruiting plans since 1945, predicts an 11% increase in the number of graduates to be hired. But 44% of the companies polled plan to take fewer advanced-degree recipients, and overall hiring will reach only about 60% of the recruiting levels of 1968 and 1969.

Easier Pickings. At many colleges, the picture is even bleaker. Michigan State University, which has as many as 2,300 recruiters swarming through the campus in a good year, has seen only 1,600 in 1971-72. At Dartmouth, only 54 companies have signed up for visits, down from 91 last year. Placement officers at U.C.L.A. report a 20% drop in recruiting from 1971.

Corporations are under less pressure to comb campuses this year. Thousands of unemployed, older college-trained workers are still in the job market. Viet Nam era veterans are also in abundance; their unemployment rate is 8.2%, as opposed to 6.1% for the work force as a whole (up slightly from November). Employees who might have changed jobs in better times are hanging on to them now, creating fewer openings for new graduates. Litton Industries, for example, has cut its intake of graduates to half of 1968's level. "Getting the best people is easier for us now," says Bob Gray, director of corporate industrial relations. "Any time we want to crank up a project, we can do it with experienced people readily available."

Some executives are worried that the present sluggishness in campus hiring may mean trouble for their companies in the future. "We will find out ten years from now that there is no one to fill the managerial ranks," predicts Monroe Sadler, Du Font's development chief. Dennis Ryan, placement director of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, adds: "The recruitment people know that this will create an air bubble in the pipeline five or ten years from now. But the personnel manager cannot get that message upstairs."