There is a small silver lining in all the carnage out there: lots of MBAs are going to have to rethink their career choices. Finance and investment banking have been top of the pops for some time, and that grew remarkably in recent years. Until now.
Anyway, consider the following graduation data from Harvard’s MBA program:
Finance: 44% (2008) / 42% (2007)
Consulting 21% (2008) / 21% (2007)
Other services 18% (2008) / 15% (2007)
Manufacturing 17% (2008) / 19% (2007)
Even being somewhat conservative, those finance numbers have to come down by at least a quarter — there are fewer i-banks and hedge funds aren’t hiring in quantity — so we are set to have a sea change in MBA employment come 2009. Should be interesting to watch, even if we don’t end up with recently-minted MBAs on breadlines.
More here via Roy Soifer.
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