New data released by the Graduate Management Admission Council shows hiring of people with MBAs is dropping off considerably this year. According to the 2009 GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey , recruiters hired, on average, 12 new MBAs in 2008. This year they expect to hire six. And the total number of firms planning on hiring MBAs has dropped 9%. The good news: companies that hire MBAs plan on paying them nearly double what they pay new employees without graduate management degrees. As a result of the down jobs market, a lot of business school grads are choosing to go back into the fields they worked in before grad school, rather than use B-School as a stepping stone into new fields, according to the Wall Street Journal : With firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns -- which used to bring on upward of 800 M.B.A.s combined every year -- now defunct, and fewer finance jobs around, more business-school graduates are leaning on their experience to get them in the door. For example, the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business has typically placed 50% of its M.B.A. alumni in finance, most at large investment banks. This year, students in all majors have been turning back to their previous fields to find work, says Char Bennington, Chicago's senior associate director of career management. Ms. Bennington says other industries, like consulting and marketing, are also hiring fewer people and looking for experience. Read With Jobs Tight, M.B.A.s Head for Home here .