Graduates face worst job market 'in two decades'
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There will be a record number of students leaving university this year - but the UK's top employers have significantly cut the number of jobs on offer
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The number of graduate jobs on offer to the Class of 2009 has been cut by 28 per cent, according to figures published today. The cutbacks mean tens of thousands of graduates face the bleak prospect of unemployment this autumn.
A survey of the 100 top graduate recruiters in the country reveals they have reduced the number of jobs they planned to offer last September by more than a quarter. Worst hit is the banking sector, which has seen a 56 per cent fall. The only growth area is the armed forces with recruitment increasing by 10 per cent this year.
The survey, by High Fliers Research, shows the firms had planned to offer 20,000 graduate jobs between them last September – but 5,500 of those have been cut or left unfilled. In total, Britain's top employers have recruited 14,370 graduates to start work later this year – whereas their original target was 19,951. The final figure compares to 16,614 hired in 2008.
The report concludes: "Graduate vacancies have been cut substantially during the 2009 recruitment season and 13.5 per cent fewer graduates will start work with the UK's leading companies this year than in 2008. This means vacancies for graduates have now been cut by over a fifth since 2007."
David Lammy, minister for Higher Education, said: "These are tough times, but a degree is a strong investment."
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Comments
Now we have Brown planning to force unwanted, badly paid jobs onto those left unemployed after graduating - unemployed because the jobs they were promised when they started University four years ago have disappeared. Thank god for the SNP, otherwise I could see myself being in deep, deep debt in a years time with little means to pay it. I truely feel for those south of the border who are forced to pay so much for something that is loosing its worth day by day...
The only difference is that the government decided not to present the figures of unemployed graduates in the same way the police were told not to report alcohol related offences as Labour pushes its 24 hour drinking policy.
The 'University Dream' was a lie fed to us by the government and the Universities themselves. The lie that we would all graduate and get good jobs from having a "decent education". The truth of the matter is that we needed Real Work Experience in order to qualify for worthwhile jobs...or have influential fathers in the city to secure us favourable jobs in their firms.
The rest of us start 3 years behind our peirs who got jobs straight from school and had to work their way up from minimum wages to more skilled and better paid positions.
Sooner or later the Universities will feel the backlash of all this.
The graduate jobs market has never been what it was purported to be. Non-graduate jobs suddenly became classified as 'graduate' jobs, even though beforehand you did not need a degree to do them. Eg Working in call centres. Employers knew they could get graduates to do them, which is why they were now described as graduate posts. There was a surplus of graduates and not enough suitable jobs around for them.
Employers haven't been very interested in degrees per se sadly since the 1980s, but instead valued 'sales' skills and the ability to talk crap without necessarily needing to be intelligent, thus degrees were considered superfluous.
In the Neo-Liberal era it was 'money-making' skills that took precedence over knowledge, literacy and thought, which is why many non-grads have done better than many of their better-educated counterparts.
And now of course we have a huge economic crisis which will only amplify and expose this all. There are still many graduates of the 1990s, like myself, whom have never been able to get a job to match their level of education. It is one of the great untold stories.
I would encourage those graduates who have not yet found a position that is commensurate with their abilities not to give up; the cream always rises though the rising may seem to take too long. If you maintain your ambition and continue to look for opportunities you will eventually succeed.
My first full time job after graduating took 3 years to get and over 400 applications, salary was 8K, and the employer wasn't too great - when I left nearly 3 years later I was doing the work of 4.5 employees who had left and not been replaced for almost the same salary - that next job took another maybe 200 applications to get. But my salary has gone up exponentially since then until it reached a plateau about 3 years back, I now get every job I apply for. As I earned more employers treated me better and better. Funny that. So don't give up, the degree is only the bit of paper that makes you different, the qualities of the graduate - ambition, adaptability, hard work, responsibility etc are what should set you apart and ultimately lead you to some kind of success.
Welcome, welcome to the real world- now please get in the queue.
In a digital age where one machine can do the job of 50 men, you dont need a degree to see that the fewer manual staff required in any industry will equate to a reduction in the graduate/ managerial posts available.
Look around you, lots of people cant get jobs, people with families to support who dont have the luxury of a university education and would be ecstatic to have one of those poorly paid jobs you are turning your nose up at.
Here endeth the lesson
Just a cog in a wheel
The point is that there has been (and is) a situation of educated people not being able to find work, as opposed to uneducated 'know-nothings'. ...
However, what I didn't have was a huge pile of debt over my head as I graduated in the last years of the grant and fees paid days. I had a small amount of debt which was still a struggle to pay back on minimum wage jobs but today's graduates must have a truly tough time in crap jobs with a seriously large loan that will take years to clear. Whilst these are the people who are meant to be guiding and funding the British economy it seems they have been seriously short-changed by the British government.
Marriagesatsang
Shame on you
I think the country can just about survive with fewer bankers. Hopefully there will now be more people attracted to genuinely productive careers like engineering.