The Polytechnic of Bari is the Italian university with the highest level of employment of master’s graduates one year after obtaining the qualification. This is what the Almalaurea consortium found in the drafting of the 26th Report on the employment status of graduates, published in recent days based on 2023 data. With an employment rate of 90.8%, Poliba is the only university that exceeds 90% for graduates second level (92.8% for two-year master’s degrees and 80.2% for single-cycle master’s degrees), with over 14 points above the national average (76.4%) and almost 20 points above the regional average (70.9% is the data in Puglia).
The second best result in Italy is from the Polytechnic University of Turin, with an employment rate of 89%. The number of Poliba graduates is also increasing, from 1,864 in 2022 to 1,920 in 2023, with an average age of 24.9 years (Italian average 25.7).
“It is a fact that confirms the quality and above all the relevance of the skills of our graduates in the job market – comments the rector of the Polytechnic of Bari, Francesco Cupertino – AThis year too we stand out at a national level with the further extraordinary result of being first in placement one year after graduation“.
In the last two editions of the Almalaurea report, in fact, Poliba recorded the highest five-year employment rate. The research is based on interviews with three-year, two-year master’s and single-cycle master’s graduates, carried out one, three and five years after obtaining the qualification. To draw up this year’s Report, AlmaLaurea contacted approximately 660 thousand graduates, of all levels, in 78 universities. Of these, 1,920 are graduates from the Polytechnic.
“With these numbers – adds the rector Cupertino – the Polytechnic of Bari proves to be an increasingly driving force for development for the Territory and for the country. Everywhere, there is a huge demand for professionalism in line with our study courses, but many more graduates are needed and this is why we have set ourselves the goal of growing in the coming years. Today we are moving towards an international development perspective which will allow us to attract the best talents, especially from the Mediterranean, and further new investments, to give young people more and more opportunities for qualified work quickly.“.
During 2023, the Order of Engineers has in fact observed a growth in demand for graduates in Italy who, in one case in five, are engineers. Around 117 thousand engineering graduates were hired, almost 5 thousand more than in 2022. The demand for engineering profiles from companies is particularly concentrated towards graduates from the industrial sector (44,300 hires), but is very high for all degree addresses (data processing by the Study Center of the National Council of Engineers).
On a territorial level, there has been an increase in the demand for engineering graduates in the central-southern regions, on the contrary a decline in Northern Italy, particularly in the North-East. The phenomenon has been interpreted in relation to the Pnrr, as it is in Southern Italy that investments connected to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan are concentrated to a greater extent, so much so that the number of hirings of civil engineers and architects has increased in these regions of the 28.6% in just one year.
“Now we have a duty to look beyond the Pnrr – concludes the rector Cupertino – to capitalize on the experience of large research projects, which have allowed us to build new collaboration networks between public and private, to equip ourselves with innovative infrastructures, to experiment with a working method that enhances research, accelerates technological transfer and favors development of the production system, with obvious implications for employment and well-being for all“.
