In the academic year 2012/13, 48 percent of the students already had a job in the bag when they received their degrees. The year before that figure was 56 percent. The decrease suggests that the economic downturn is affecting the job market for Wageningen graduates too, although they are still faring better than graduates from other institutes of higher education.
One striking change is that students who did find a job were more often offered a permanent contract: 27 percent, as opposed to 18 percent the year before. That is not what you would expect in a time when competition on the job market is hotting up. It may be related to the fact that a larger proportion of graduates are landing government jobs, for which permanent contracts are offered more readily than in the private sector. The number of graduates starting their own business has almost halved: from 5 to 3 percent.
Wageningen’s graduates live up to its international reputation, the figures show. Of the Dutch nationals among the graduates, almost one quarter go straight off to work overseas. Of the foreign students, 14 percent stay on in the Netherlands.