Job Opportunities?

[cback]

Can someone please tell me what the job opportunities for actuaries is actually like in Australia? I would much appreciate this as I am deciding between actuary or majoring in economics/finance.

[Eugenet17]

I'd like to know this as well, also to anybody doing actuarial studies at UoM, when Accelerated Maths 1 requires a spesh score of 38+, is that raw?

[Sach1_K]

 I heard monash is getting accredited with part 2 next year, so that opens doors to double degree options so I'm thinking of doing act studies and maybe applied mathematics just so I'm not completly locked in to act studies

[cback]

I'd like to know this as well, also to anybody doing actuarial studies at UoM, when Accelerated Maths 1 requires a spesh score of 38+, is that raw?

To do Accelerated Maths I you do need 38+ RAW in specialist mathematics, however you can still do actuarial studies through a different maths pathway. The only difference is in order to proceed with actuarial studies you need a 65% average in Accelerated Maths, whilst in the other pathway you need a 75% average.

[Fluttershy]

Qualified actuaries in Australia are pretty far and few in between. The number of students, though, is quite comparatively high...

While I have no idea what the job prospects are like, because people seem to have differing opinions, I will say that actuarial is quite a difficult course, in terms of the maths at least. You should also be prepared to sit through some pretty boring stuff, or so I've heard. The difficulty/boring nature of the course seems to weed out a lot of students over the first couple of years, and a lot of them go into finance/accounting, or so I've heard.

Plus, there are a limited number of internships, so you should be prepared to get a little competitive with fellow students in second year. Apparently firms look for leadership and extra-curriculars as well as grades when considering applications for internship, so joining committees, or volunteering, or doing something outside of actuarial to boost your application is recommended.

After graduation (assuming you've gotten the 70% minimum to get into Honours, which also has a limited number of places), you work as an actuarial analyst for a few years while sitting a third set of exams to become a fully qualified actuary. I think I read somewhere it takes 4 years on average to pass these exams, so they're quite difficult.

In terms of job prospects, I've heard conflicting views. Some people think the low number of actuaries means that there are a lot of job openings, whereas others think that this is because of low demand rather than low supply, and that actuarial jobs are slowly getting outsourced. I have no evidence to support either theory, though, so please take this advice with a grain of salt.

Hope this cleared up any confusion