DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON LABOUR OUTCOMES OF NUS STUDENTS FROM DIFFERENT SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUNDS.

Abstract

This paper uses data from the annual Graduate Employment Survey (GES) to examine the differences in labour outcomes of NUS graduates affected by the pandemic and those not affected by the pandemic using a simple Ordinary-Least-Squares (OLS) regression. In addition, this paper investigates the possible differential impact of COVID-19 on labour outcomes of NUS graduates from different household income backgrounds using a Difference-in-Differences (DID) methodology. The labour outcomes of interest are (i) Basic starting salary, (ii) Employment, (iii) Full-time permanent employment, and (iv) Labour Force Participation. This study finds that COVID-19 has no differential impact on basic starting salary, likelihood of employment and full-time permanent employment of graduates with different household incomes. However, higher household income graduates were 1.21% more likely, on average, to participate in the labour force due to the COVID-19 pandemic compared to lower household income graduates, with results being significant at the 10% significance level.