If the first destination of 1997 graduate reports from DCU and UL are anything to go by, graduate recruitment is buoyant.

The number of DCU graduate seeking employment - less than 2 per cent - is the lowest for a number of years, according to Barry Kehoe, DCU's director of student services. Three quarters of the 1997 crop of graduates have already found employment; more than one in five has gone on to do research, further study or vocational or professional training. Two thirds of business studies graduates (the largest graduating class) have found jobs, while 87 per cent of graduates in international marketing and languages has also gone directly in to employment. The computer applications programme, too, shows a strong employment record, with 92 per cent of the cohort taking up jobs. UL's most recent figures show that the number of its graduates (10 per cent) going abroad to work has reached an all-time low, according to Mary Sweeney, UL's careers officer. Seventy per cent of UL's 1997 graduates have found employment, while just over one quarter have embarked on further study and only 2 per cent of the cohort are still seeking employment. Almost half of UL's employed graduates were recruited by industry - 29 per cent of them into electronic engineering. The commercial sector accounted for just over one-third of jobs. Within this sector some 27 per cent of graduates found employment in financial and computing businesses.

Both UL and DCU consistently show graduate employment rates above the national average - which is usually around 55 per cent.