Nunzio Quacquarelli on the Latest MBA Jobs and Salary Trends

In terms of the results for this year, growth year on year is very strong. We can talk about some of the regional variations, and there are significant regional variations, but it does demonstrate the underlying health of the MBA qualification. And what's interesting is that since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, you know, we did see a drop-off in demand in the immediate two years afterwards, but the recovery has been more rapid than in previous cyclical downturns. I see, so if we look back to the dot-com crash at the turn of the millennium, it was really there were four years of sustained slowdown in MBA hiring where most MBA sectors were adversely affected. What we're seeing now is that even with the tremendous shock of the Lehman Brothers collapse and the financial crisis, and there was a significant downturn in demand within financial services for MBAs, which takes typically about 31% of MBA graduates from good schools, despite that, overall demand has managed to recover very quickly and then grow well ahead of the levels of 2007. There's no doubt that in the recovery period since 2007-2008, Asia has been an engine of growth. Absolutely, we see that this year Asia is growing demand at 20% in terms of the number of MBA job opportunities reported by responding employers compared to the previous year, and that's a slight slowdown from 2012-2011. We're seeing the same pattern emerging in China that happened in India 10 years ago, where the Chinese employers are beginning to recognize the MBA qualification. There are now, I think, over 250 business schools in China. We see very strong growth in the Middle East, and Latin America has performed well for a number of years, so it is very much a global phenomenon. And the US is looking like it will grow opportunities quite substantially in the next couple of years. So, although the growth in MBA employment opportunities has been relatively low in the last couple of years, projections of employers in this year's survey for 2014 are very encouraging. I think they're projecting over 10% growth in MBA opportunities in North America in 2014. Okay, and from a big number, that's a lot of new MBA opportunities. It is true, however, that with the reduction in opportunities in financial services, Europe was hit quite hard by the financial crisis, so, you know, we did see a small reduction in the overall opportunities for a number of years. That is only just beginning to recover, so the European market is—employers are projecting growth of, I think, 6% in 2014. And I think their expectation is it's going to kick on well from there. We're also seeing quite good GDP growth figures coming out of the UK, Germany, and those two economies are the heartbeat of Europe. Eastern Europe is a much smaller base, so when you have a much smaller base, it means the swings can be much larger. The majority of Eastern European MBAs in the last decade have found employment in Western Europe or even further afield. What we're seeing now, though, is actually opportunities within each zone. So, you know, the best Russian MBA candidates got jobs in New York or in London; today, the best Russian MBA candidates can get jobs in Moscow or around Russia because there are a lot of Russian employers who are expanding, who are financially very successful in banking, energy, insurance, in other sectors, and they're active. So, Russia will be a strong employment market domestically in 2014, and we're also seeing that in some of the smaller Eastern European economies, Czech Republic, Poland, for example. There are some very positive inward investment trends in terms of foreign multinationals moving into those economies, looking to set up outsourced service operations in some instances. They're renewing investment in manufacturing plants, and they're bringing in professional services professionals and supply chain management professionals, and that's creating opportunities for MBAs.