Graduate Outcomes Surveys (GOS, GOS-L)

The GOS is completed by graduates approximately four months after completion of their studies. It provides information on the labour market outcomes and further study activities of graduates. Employment data collected includes information on salaries, occupation and skills utilisation. The GOS has been administered annually since 2016.

Recent graduates of Australian higher education institutions are in scope for the GOS, including at undergraduate, postgraduate coursework and postgraduate research level. Information is collected for both domestic and onshore international graduates, however published results refer to domestic graduates only.

The GOS uses labour force definitions which conform to the conceptual framework of the standard labour force statistics model used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Full-time employment relates to graduates employed for 35 hours or more per week. Overall employment relates to graduates employed for one or more hours per week. For more detail, refer to the latest 2021 GOS National Report.

Information on the ComparED website about graduate employment outcomes and satisfaction is sourced from the GOS, including responses from domestic undergraduate and postgraduate coursework level graduates. Survey results from the three most recent collection years are pooled to improve data reliability. Three indicators of graduate labour force outcomes are displayed on the ComparED website:

1. Graduates in full-time employment
2. Graduates in overall employment
3. Graduates in full-time study

90 per cent confidence intervals are displayed to provide a measure of accuracy of the estimates. For technical details about the calculations used to score data derived from the GOS, please see the document, GOS Methodology for ComparED Website.

Graduate incomes data is sourced from records from the Australian Taxation Office.

The GOS-L is completed by graduates of Australian higher education institutions approximately three years after completion of their studies. The survey is conducted as a cohort study based on graduates who previously completed the GOS. For example, the 2020 GOS-L re-surveys graduates who completed the 2017 GOS. The GOS-L collects information relating to labour force outcomes and further study activities. Employment data collected includes information on salaries, occupation and skills utilisation. The GOS-L has been administered annually since 2016.

Graduates of Australian higher education institutions are in scope for the GOS-L, including at undergraduate, postgraduate coursework and postgraduate research level. Information is collected for both domestic and international graduates, however published results refer to domestic graduates only.