Tough times for the class of 2009

When he started three years ago, on what is regarded as the discipline’s most prestigious course, 97 per cent of graduates were being  offered jobs before they had even got their official results, such was the demand.

Today he is struggling to find employment of any kind.

“Now for every job I apply for I know that I am behind a thousand with experience and the same qualification as me,” he said.

“I can see my degree becoming an undesired one as a lot of my friends are trying to do masters. I personally don’t have the money to offer my services for free like many trying to get experience and then hopefully getting a paid job when the recession lifts.

“I have had to return home to Leicester and I am looking into teaching as I have taught youngsters football and people thought I had a talent for that, so maybe that’s the way forward.

“Every job I have applied for I am  unqualifi ed for and have had two job rejections today – one as a receptionist and the other as a gardener. I am going to do my FA level 1 coaching badge so then I could work maybe as a PE teacher, but unless I do full teacher training the chances of a job are thin.”

In his second year, Michael had worked for construction firm ISG Interiors Exterior and was told it was likely this summer job would lead to permanent employment, but with the recession everything changed and the same companies that would have snapped up Michael and his fellow students began laying off staff instead of taking on new recruits.

Sadly Michael is far from alone. Around 400,000 young men and women across Britain are currently in the last stages of an education process that is supposed to prepare them to take on the most demanding jobs our society has to offer.

Increasingly, Britain’s graduates are not working and if they are it is far from the field they had dreamed of joining.

Burdened with debt after three years of paying tuition fees and living expenses, they face a summer of scrambling to capture one of the rapidly diminishing number of jobs available.

As the recession bites deeper, the country’s employers are reacting by cutting back on their plans to recruit from this year’s crop of graduates on an unprecedented scale.

There are now nearly 890,000 people under the age of 25 currently unemployed, a figure which is expected to rise to more than a million as this summer’s graduates pick up their degrees and head out for the world of work.

For many, instead of becoming accountants, lawyers, architects or businessmen, they face taking on jobs for which they are vastly overqualified. Some will be forced to find temporary jobs, others to re-train or take on voluntary work while they try to work out how best to plan their careers in an economic climate almost unrecognisable from the one they anticipated.

The latest surveys of graduate employers makes chilling reading and their advice to job seekers equally grim.

The number of graduate vacancies is to drop this year for the first time since 2003 while starting salaries will be frozen for the first time since these records were compiled.

One expert warned that if students haven’t found themselves a job of their choice by now then it is already too late.

Those who fail to capture roles in their chosen careers are being advised to consider work in other fields or temporary jobs to make ends meet until the economy improves.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters has warned that employers are predicting a 5.4 per cent fall in  vacancies in 2009 with 46 per cent of organisations expecting to hire fewer graduates this year.

To put that into context, last year employers predicted that vacancies would rise by 11.7 per cent but such were the economic upheavals caused by the onset of recession, they actually rose by just 0.6 per cent.

A similar gap between forecast and reality this year in what the AGR’s chief executive Carl Gilleard calls “unprecedented times”, would be catastrophic.

The hardest hit sectors will be banking, says the AGR, with a “massive” 28 per cent fall in vacancies compared to last year.

Construction sector jobs will fall by 16.6 per cent, vacancies in the financial services industry will shrink by 10.7 per cent and accountancy will be offering 5.9 per cent fewer career opportunities.

The effect of this is heightened as these sectors are traditionally the biggest recruiters of graduates.

The IT sector says it fears recruitment will fall by more than seven per cent, transport will be 6.6 per cent down, consulting and business services will fall by 6.5 per cent and there will be 1.8 per cent fewer jobs in retail.

The only employers to predict an increase in job vacancies are in the public sector, traditionally a safe haven in diffi cult times, where there is a forecast three per cent rise, engineering, up 8.3 per cent, the consumer goods sector, which is predicted to go up by 12.9 per cent, and the law which predicts a two per cent rise.

Dr John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said that one out of every six 18-24 year olds are  already unemployed, even before this year’s crop of school leavers and new graduates enter the jobs market.

“While the recession is now hitting every sector, every occupation and every region the big losers are young people,” he said. “Youth employment prospects are crumbling, with the toll of job losses falling most heavily on the  under-25s. It will be a bleak summer and autumn for this year’s crop of young talent.”

With fewer vacancies, the jobs market will become increasingly competitive and employers will be able to be more choosy as to who they recruit. It is no longer enough for graduates to turn up for interviews with their academic qualifications and expect to be hired.

Ruth Elwood, Head of Recruitment at KPMG, said: “The recession is forcing young people to develop the age-old business skill of multi-tasking ahead of time – launching a systematic job search while still studying for their exams. It is no longer enough to start thinking about jobs once exams are over.

"Those that do not already have a place for September are unlikely to find one now, or not in their first choice profession.”

Graduate Prospects chief executive Mike Hill urged employers to maintain their graduate recruitment levels despite the recession, claiming it would pay long-term dividends.

“These figures make sobering reading and show that even though some key sectors and employers continue to seek graduates, the message isn’t getting through to students.

We need to think long-term and this isn’t the time to devalue a degree,” he said.

“A recession is a good time to  recruit graduates, to ensure you’re in a position to take advantage of the upturn when it happens. If we don’t keep the pipeline open there will be a war on talent and bigger issues post- recession.”