Making that first step into the world of work can often prove the most difficult to achieve – especially in industry sectors where experience is preferred to youthful potential.
With Britain still firmly in a recession, jobs are very much thin on the ground and businesses are more unwilling than usual to take perceived risks on young people coming out of university or college with their specialist qualifications.
Whether you’re intending to work in a serviced office, become a nurse, engineer, project manager, software developer or a teacher, it’s unlikely you’ll be instantaneously rewarded with your profession of choice.
The statistics back-up this theory with an ever-increasing amount of young people out of work. A recent report from UK parliament claims that, between February and April 2012, there were 1.01m unemployed people between the ages of 16-24. This is a rise of 13 per cent from the same time period in 2011.
Young people aged 18 to 24 who are claiming Jobseekers Allowance also showed a 7.5 per cent rise across a 12-month period.
However, this news doesn’t seem to be have deterred the latest batch of students who are set to become graduates in 2012.
A survey from High Fliers indicates that by end of February this year over 60 per cent of final year students had already applied for a job. This is around a 40 per cent rise from two years ago.
However, the same study also reveals that the chances of students landing the jobs in which they have applied for can be extremely limited with the University of Liverpool having just a 5 per cent success rate in their applications.
This is something that the young people seem to be aware of with an increased number of students describing their employment opportunities at the end of the university as “limited”.
The most popular potential job sector to move into is believed to be marketing but even small businesses who run a serviced office setup are unlikely to be considering improving their recruitment of graduates in the coming months.
Instead of gaining the crucial experience needed to progress on the job ladder, graduates are finding that they are plunged into a pool of debt following their time at university and jobless without prospects of finding that sacred position any time soon.
If the current trend continues to develop, young people may find themselves in lower-end jobs with long hours that are unable to pay off their debts any time soon.
