International recruiters identify Irish graduates as 'most employable'

International recruiters believe that Ireland produces the most highly-employable graduates in the world, according to a European Commission study of third-level education - as reported by the Sunday Business Post.

Universities in other countries have rated Ireland’s univesities as 'excellent' in the report, which was prepared for the Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs.

The EC report was based on a study of the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending on tertiary education. It found that Ireland was the top of the list of countries, which recruiters found were producing the 'most employable' graduates.

Ireland was well ahead of Britain, which was in second place. Ireland came second, behind Finland, in the list of countries that was rated by their peers as having the best universities.

In analysing the efficiency of the various third-level systems worldwide, the report found that Ireland, Japan, Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands were top of most efficiency lists.

'In some cases, this was essentially due to excellent scientific production (Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands), whereas Ireland attained its position due to the graduation output, which is not only high in number but also the best in perceived quality,' the report read.

Ireland came top of the list of countries with the highest number of graduates per 1,000 inhabitants and second in the list of countries which have a high graduate throughput compared with the number of academic staff. Ireland had double the average rate in this category.

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