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<p>Actually, each year’s survey is closed and replaced by the next year’s survey. So each year’s survey covers initial post-graduation activities up to about six months after graduation, so there is no inflation of earlier year statistics due to longer time.</p>
<p>The example student in the first post probably would have gotten a job in the 2006 bubble despite the presumed laziness (though a bubble job has a significant chance of disappearing in the bust). However, the presumed laziness would have pretty much guaranteed not finding a job in 2009 (though even non-lazy graduates would have had a hard time then).</p>
<p>The conclusion should not be “don’t go into engineering” or “don’t go into civil engineering”. It should be “don’t be lazy” (something you can control) and “economic and industry cycles happen” (something that is mostly luck of the draw with respect to when you graduate, though if you have the option to go to graduate school or extend undergraduate by a year to get past the worst of the economic downturn, that may be worth considering).</p>