Good news for those who have just completed their MBA studies: demand for MBA graduates is on the rise globally, according to a new report from the Graduate Management Admission Council (or GMAC), the company that runs the GMAT.
The report, which collected responses from 628 companies in 51 countries, found that 86 percent of employers surveyed are expecting to hire fresh MBA graduates in 2017, up from 79 percent last year.
And as well as the median salary for US MBA graduates being expected to reach $110,000 (an increase of $5,000 year-on-year since 2015), starting salaries for new MBA hires are looking to increase globally.
Around the world, more than half of the employers surveyed (52 percent) said they planned to increase starting salaries, either at the rate of inflation (34 percent of employers) or even higher (18 percent).
MBA hiring on the rise in firms big and small
When it comes to the big players, more than 9 out of 10 Fortune 100, 500, Global 100, and Global 500, as well as publicly traded companies, responded that they were looking to hire MBA graduates this year.
But the expected MBA hiring among the startup community was also noteworthy: 74 percent of startup employers said they had plans to employ MBA graduates this year, up from 52 percent in 2016.
US and Asia-Pacific region expecting the most new hires
Demand for recent MBA graduates was found to be strongest in the United States and Asia-Pacific where 9 in 10 respondents plan to hire MBA graduates in 2017, an increase of six to seven percentage points compared with 2016 hiring.
Read the full report on the GMAC website.
Image: Sydney by Sven Festersen CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
