Petesb et al,
Thanks for your comments on the employment report. I have been talking with some other students as well as the school about the numbers and can offer a couple thoughts on some of the differences:
- the biggest influence on the salary figures is the sample size, which is small every year. 2011 apparently was an outlier year with more people receiving high salaries reporting. The 5-year mean salary from the survey results is GBP 62,307.
- In 2012, on the other hand, a larger share of students sponsored by governmental and supranational finance firms in Asia reported their salaries compared to previous years. These people tend to have salaries in the lower quartile of the class in terms of base salary. This likely lowers the mean figure. The median, on the other hand, is higher as you noted.
- 2012 had a higher proportion of students working in Asia relative to last year. These students also tend to have lower salaries than those who work in Europe.
- The school believes that the fact that the London median salary improved. This data represents the highest proportion of students placed as well as the highest proportion of students reporting salaries, so they feel that it is more representative of the class than the other regions.
Please feel free to write me with any additional questions or requests for information.
RK
petesb93101 wrote:
Hello All,
The 2012 MiF Employment report is out at length.
Pretty disappointing results! Just a few highlights that caught my eyes:
Employment 2012: 81% (vs 84% in 2011)
Average base salary 2012: GBP 55k (vs GBP 73k in 2011)
I think the real shock is the decrease in salary figures...
Anybody any comments on the above?
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Maybe its not as disappointing as it would appear...
Currency...its hard to make comparisons for 2011 vs 2012 without knowing the currency exchange rates for each of the reported salaries. Overall, I believe you would find that the GBP strengthened from Aug 1, 2011 to Aug 1, 2012 vs. most major global currencies, which may account for a certain amount of the declines in reported salaries.
Although, the Latin American results seem to have substantially improved, which is the opposite of what I would have expected, considering the over 20% weakening in the Brazilian Real vs the GBP from 2011 to 2012 (maybe there is a mistake in the numbers/calculations in the LBS report?).
The relatively small sample size of the reported results may have skewed the numbers between years. Likewise, the difference between 81% employed in 2012 vs 84% in 2011 is like 4 students.
More details regarding reported figures would be needed before definitive conclusions could be drawn for 2011 vs 2012.
The easiest comparisons are in the UK, where the sample sizes are largest and there are no currency changes. In the UK, the mean salary declined 11% to £63.3 in 2012 from £71.3 in 2011, but the median salary actually increased 7% to £70.0 in 2012 from £65.0 in 2011.
Lastly, obtaining an MiF degree from LBS is not a 1-year investment...you would need to look at salaries over ones lifetime to determine relative returns on investment.
So again, its hard to know exactly what's happening without more details/history on the numbers behind the numbers...maybe someone from LBS can provide more colour?