Graduate jobs shrink for first time since 2003

Graduates this year face the toughest times of all in a shrinking job market, as well as being the most heavily indebted of all.

The 2009 class are going to be the first to graduate having paid the £3,000 tuition fees and a recent employers poll has revealed that there have been widespread cuts in graduate recruitment.

This is especially evident in the City as there has been a 28 percent reduction, alongside previously high graduate recruiters such as accountancy, construction and IT who have all cut back their graduate schemes in 2008.

As well as an increasingly difficult entry to the graduate job market, graduate salaries have also frozen.

The chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, Carl Gilleard said that graduates are now facing uncertain times ahead and almost any work is better than none at all.

46 percent of the organisations polled expected to hire fewer graduates this year and the majority cited the recession as the main cause for the cut backs. However, the present downturn has not affected the graduate market as badly as in 1991 where vacancies fell by 32 percent.

This year’s report has left a bleak picture for graduate recruitment and the serious affect the current economic downturn although the situation could be far worse.

Story link: Graduate jobs shrink for first time since 2003