Almost 91% of Central Queensland University bachelor degree graduates found full-time employment within four months of completing their degrees, according to the 2005 Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) results released today.

CQU ranked 10% higher than the national average of 80.9% and only had 3.1% of graduates still looking for full-time employment compared to the national average of 6.9%.

The survey also showed that 6% of CQU bachelor degree graduates were working on a part-time or casual basis while the national average was 12.3%.

The GDS found that new bachelor degree graduates from across all Australian universities found employment more readily in 2005 than in recent years; graduate starting salaries increased by $2000 in 12 months; fewer new graduates are unemployed; and there has been a further narrowing of the gap between males' and females' median starting salaries.

The initial national results of the 2005 survey appear in Graduate Careers Australia's new summary publications, GradStats and The Grad Files.

The GDS is conducted annually in cooperation with all Australian institutions of higher education. The GDS tracks the activities of new university graduates who completed their qualifications in the previous calendar year. In 2005, information from over 110,000 new graduates was analysied for this new report.