The Ever Shrinking Graduate Job Market

The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), released new figures today concerning the graduate job market in the UK. The survey found that for each graduate job advertised an average of 48 university graduates apply, the survey also discovered that vacancies have plummeted by 24.9% year on year and are approaching depths not seen since the early 1990s.

One third of businesses reported an average of 150 applications for each job advertised, the IT, banking and engineering industries have seen a huge decline in the number of positions available.

This all is very depressing for those graduating this year who arguably have it worse then any other graduating class since the early 1990s. Those that graduated last year, have already had a tough year, trying to find their place in the job market during a recession which has meant that many highly skilled graduates have ended up working in roles that do not allow them to fulfil their potential - mainly positions in the hospitality industry.

Graduates this year, are faced with a limited number of options, how long will they have to wait to get a job? What will they do with their free time? How will they ever pay back their university debts? All of these questions will be buzzing round the heads of the newly graduated class of 2009.

Many graduates may opt to do voluntary work or internships to build their resume, others may get any odd job they can and save their money to go traveling, others may sign on to the UK Governments job seekers allowance benefit.

Many graduates will no doubt be applying for the popular teaching English abroad placement offered by several organisations allowing graduates to live in different locations around the world and teach English, this is extremely popular as you get paid and it looks great on your resume as well as giving you a teaching certification.

Already in 2009 we have seen a great rise in the number of 20 - 25 year old's that have signed on to the UK Governments benefit schemes.

A Guardian survey released last week predicts that 1 in 10 2009 graduates will be unemployed in six month time.

One thing is for sure, thousands of graduates this summer are faced with a lot of difficult questions and decisions about how they will get the career they have studied for.

The survey carried out by AGR is based on the responses of 226 graduate recruiters across 15 sectors.

UK Unemployment Statistics

Figures released from the UK National Statistics website show the number of jobs fell by 108,000 between December 2008 and March 2009 to reach 31.19 million.

The number of unemployed people increased by 232,000 over the first quarter of 2009 and by 605,000 over the year, to reach 2.26 million.

The number of those claiming Government benefits was 1.54 million in May 2009. Up 39,300 over the previous month and up 726,100 over the year. It hasn't been seen at this level since July 1997.

The number of economically inactive people of working age rose by 92,000 over the first quarter of this year and by 32,000 over the year to reach 7.89 million.

The category showing the largest quarterly increase was students which increased by 83,000 to reach 2.14 million, the highest figure since records began in 1993.

The area of the UK with the highest unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2009 was the West Midlands with a huge 9.5% unemployment rate, the North East comes second with 8.4% of its population unemployed and London comes in third with just over 8%.