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Scotland has avoided the brain drain that was expected to follow the recovery from the 1992 recession, according to a survey on graduate employment.

The study by the Scottish Graduate Careers Programme, a joint venture between the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and the Central Services Unit, says the number of graduates finding jobs in Scotland in 1994 increased by a third.

Scotland produces around 11 per cent of the United Kingdom's new graduates, despite having only 9 per cent of the population. When the graduate job market recovered after the 1983 recession, many Scottish graduates took jobs elsewhere in the country as Scotland failed to keep pace with the UK recovery.

But the new study says the Scottish job market has so far absorbed the increase in graduates. Numbers finding jobs rose from 4,100 in 1992 to 5,400 in 1994, three quarters of the total, and there has been no rise in numbers leaving Scotland.

But the survey warns that there has not yet been a significant reduction in graduates who have only temporary jobs or are unemployed at the end of the calendar year following graduation.