US employers plan to hire 4% more college grads from the class of 2018 than they did from the prior year’s class, according to a fall survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. While this is a deceleration from similar surveys in recent years — last year, employers said they planned to hire 5.8% more 2017 grads — results still to point to a positive job market for new college graduates, according to NACE.

This year, the percentage of responding organizations that plan to increase their hires increased to 43.7% from 36.3% in the year-ago survey, while those maintaining their numbers dropped to 46.7% from 52.1%. And only 9.6% plan to cut their number of hires, down from 11.6%.

Among those employers planning to increase their hires, company growth, retirements and the need for entry-level talent were the primary drivers behind hiring plans.

The employers surveyed were members of NACE. The survey is conducted in two parts: fall and spring. This release is based on data collected from Aug. 9 through Oct. 2, 2017. A total of 201 NACE-member organizations participated.