A study released by the Ministry of Education shows that graduates with doctoral degrees are less likely to work in New Zealand than if they had only graduated with a bachelors or masters degree.

Four years after they had finished their study more than a third of doctoral graduates were not working in New Zealand. A fifth of all doctoral graduates had never worked in New Zealand at all during the four-year period.

The study, ‘Do people with doctoral degrees get jobs in New Zealand post study?‘ by the Ministry of Education’s Dr Warren Smart notes the domestic employment rate of the New Zealand doctoral cohort was lower than in similar leaving cohorts in Canada and the United Kingdom.

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey says that many doctoral students are looking for beginning positions as academics in tertiary institutions, but New Zealand’s universities, wānanga and polytechnics are not doing enough to provide the secure, stable job opportunities these graduates need to keep them here in New Zealand.

“ New Zealand’s tertiary institutions have an ageing academic workforce because they are not doing enough to hire new academics. Many academics are nearing retirement age and we could soon have a severe workforce shortage because we have not done enough to bring new, young academics into our institutions,” said Dr Grey.