Redundancies keep mounting as unemployment escalates to heights of 7.9% in the UK. The recession may have reached its peek, but companies traditionally still shed workers after they have returned to growth. Sectors most affected have been business, finance, and construction: mostly male-lead industries. As a result, many women have become the sole breadwinners in their households (whether willingly or not, they have always been a favourite for short-term, part-time contracts). The two girls I spoke to represented yet another group: young people. For them it was hard to even get their foot in the door.
There are now 946,000 young people out of work in the UK, and their prospects do not look promising. With the budget deficit going through the roof, a pension crisis looming ahead, and an extra £40 billion of taxpayers’ money going to RBS and Lloyds this November, a whole generation will have to foot the bill for decades to come. Yet at the moment, one in five graduates cannot even find work: the first rung on the employment ladder is slippery, since companies are stepping up the competition in every recruitment round.
Charlotte Edwins* just completed her MA in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London. (Having obtained a 1st in her BA.) She is looking for work to fund her future studies, with her CV boasting extensive experience in finance, retail, as a student ambassador, and even in the police force. She told me about how the recession has tripped her up:
It was my impression that you did a degree to get up on the career ladder. Unfortunately I have done four years and two qualifications but I am having to start at the very bottom.
Charlotte is understandably frustrated: she has applied to at least 15 jobs since September, been contacted for only one interview, and the job that was earmarked for an internal candidate!
Young people have always been among the most vulnerable groups in times of economic hardship. Their lack of training, skills and references make them less attractive to prospective employers, especially when waves of more experienced workers are flooding the reserve labour pool. Charlotte’s future plans hardly seem surprising therefore: she now wants to stay in education for good, and become an English lecturer. Statistics indicate that BAs are no longer a passport into well-paid employment, even outside the realm of academic careers. Among those who graduated in 2005 with postgraduate qualifications, 85% had been in graduate level jobs since leaving university compared with 56% of those with just a bachelor’s degree.
Unpicking which sectors will value further education can be a thorny business however. Post-grad student Victoria Chan* graduated from Oxford University with a 2:2 in Engineering, then went on to Imperial to do an MA in Engineering in Medicine, before completing a PhD in Biomechanics/Bioengineering. When she started the PhD she expected to be head-hunted for a job. She explains what actually happened:
A lot of the time, PhDs are competing with fresh grads for places and companies do not consider the PhD to be an advantage. In fact I was told outright by Deloitte that they would hire someone with a 2.1 over me, regardless of the institution that I went to or the 2 further degrees that I held. I was gutted!
She had been looking for work since October 2008, and was finally hired by Detica in September 2009.
The shortfall of entry-level jobs is making competition for vacancies more fierce, and young people increasingly frustrated with the arduous application process. On top of that, and as with most women in the labour market, Charlotte has found herself applying for jobs that offer little protection and no long-term prospects:
The applications are horrendously long and boring, about eight pages for a simple admin role. They take around one to two full days to finish. Employers expect ridiculous things, like extensive experience in administration (usually over five years), which immediately cuts out all graduates. They offer no benefits, no pensions. They want more and more for less money and on a short contract. The world of work is becoming more like a one-night stand and less like a marriage if you know what I mean!
Constant rejections from jobs and prolonged unemployment is likely to impact on morale. Afterall, a GDP deficit in six consecutive terms might easily change the definition 'recession' into 'depression'. Research carried out at Bristol University on ‘The Wage Scar from Youth Unemployment’ revealed that youth unemployment increases a person’s chances of future unemployment up to 10 years later, and guarantees a ‘wage scar’ of between 10%-15% by age 42. It would seem that the best predictor of an individual's future risk of unemployment is their past history of unemployment.
Charlotte reflected on the psychological impacts of this worrying trend:
I had a mini break-down, which basically involves feelings of hopelessness and a general lack of self-worth. The only thing that stopped me from leaving the country was seeing a lecturer yesterday about doing a PhD. It's embarrassing to go from heading towards a career path to doing nothing all day. I have a few friends on the dole but to be honest it's not something I can face doing right now. Going to a seedy office to sign a piece of paper and say I am completely unemployable for £50 a week is beyond my pride level.
Both Charlotte and Victoria now have debts of over £20,000 to pay back to student loans, overdraft facilities and other sources of funding. Their situations represent a discrepancy between what people are promised before they start their BAs, and what they are faced with after they graduate. Ultimately, these girls have benefited from their degrees in getting one step closer toward their final goals. But countless other graduates in the UK have found themselves in dead-end cul de sacs, with crippling debts and no graduate-level salaries to steer themselves out with. It's inevitable that many regret having taken the path into university. The long-lasting consequences of a recession that has pushed so many into the margins should urge schools, sixth-form colleges and the media to engage in a more honest discourse with young people before they start, with regards to the value of a good institution and the weight that subjects can hold. Nobody told 'Generation Y' that the subjects they picked would pigeon-hole them so stringently when faced with the realities of an increasingly competitive labour market.
*names were changed as interviewees wished to remain anonymous
No comments:
Post a Comment