A THIRD OF GRADUATES ARE DOING LOW-SKILLED JOBS, NEW RESEARCH REVEALS
The number of recent graduates employed in low-skilled jobs — including retail assistants, cleaners, hotel porters and machine operatives — has hit a ten-year high, according to new figures released today. A third of graduates are employed in such jobs, it has emerged.
The Office of National Statistics has found that the number of university leavers finding themselves in these roles has increased from 27% (one in four) to 36% (one in three) over the last decade — meaning that now nearly four in 10 people who graduated in the last six years have failed to find high-skilled work.
In 2001, three in four graduates were employed in higher skilled jobs that require education past the compulsory level, such as accountants, senior managers, teachers and electricians. That number has nose-dived in over the last ten years, as many recent graduates have been forced to weather the recession by taking jobs traditionally held by school leavers without a degree.
The survey shows that graduates with a degree in medicine or dentistry earn the most at around £21.29 per hour – while graduates with an arts degree earn the least at £12.06 per hour. (Non-graduates earn around £8.92). Those who finished university in the last two years are the most likely to be unemployed.
But it’s not just down to the recession. The statistics highlight the huge surge in the number people going to university, which they view as an investment in their future. Over the last ten years, the total number of graduates who left uni in the last six years has jumped by over 41 percent, amounting to an extra 438,000 university leavers. This has meant there is now stiffer competition than ever for what were once called ‘graduate’ jobs. It now seems that there are simply too many graduates — and not enough graduate jobs.
The news will come as little surprise to many of Graduate Fog’s readers, some of whom have reported deleting your degree from their CV in order to be considered for bar work, shop jobs and cleaning jobs in your months of job-hunting after graduation. Those who can afford to work unpaid are doing months (years?) of internships (and running out of money). Those of you who can’t afford to are desperate for anything you can get that’s even vaguely related to your chosen industry – but many would take anything that pays.
While there is nothing wrong with low-skilled work, it is not fair to call graduates snobs for being disappointed and frustrated that your degree has not opened more doors in higher-skilled jobs with bigger salaries and greater opportunities for career progression. After all, that is exactly what you were told your degree would lead to — by schools, politicians and the universities themselves — when they enrolled. Why else would you have done it?
*Have you taken low-skilled work since you graduated?
Should the government and universities be doing more to ensure that graduates find decent jobs? Is it reasonable that graduates expect to get something better than a shop job after three years of study at university?
Yep, that’s me. Graduated in 2008 and worked in low paid/unskilled jobs since and worked in a shop for the last 2 years.
At Christmas i had had enough of it, so i left to re-train and further my skills, as i felt my degree wasn’t getting me anywhere. I couldn’t take the feeling of failure any more, it’s not that i think it’s “below me” at all, the people i worked with i had a lot of respect for, they were really really great people, it’s i just have worked so so hard and achieved excellent grades all through education so I always hoped for a better future where i would actually have some money (for once) and a decent job where i might get a tiny bit of respect…
I worked the jobs because i could get them. it was money, i saved and saved to put me in my position i’m in now (where i would need it) so it gives me a choice of where to go next.
I do think some grads can sometimes be snobbish towards jobs though. Just because you are a grad you shouldn’t be an arrogant so and so about it! I have literally heard friends say “i won’t accept a job under £25,000 a year”….
£25,000?!
I DREAM about that sort of salary i really do!, i’m not debating that they haven’t worked hard, but having never been paid more than minimum wage even £15,000+ would be good.
Do i think it’s reasonable that graduates expect to get something better than a shop job after three years of study at university?
Yes… i do..i mean what’s the point in spending 3/4 years studying further to get nothing from it…but as we know sometimes you gotta take the rough with the smooth, to be honest it can be just as depressing (if not more) being in a low skilled, low paid job where you’re treated like s**t as it is being unemployed to be honest. And I know both sides.
Yes we should HOPE for better, and yeah even expect it. But we shouldn’t ever ever look down on those who do have these jobs. ever. You’ve just got to use a low skilled job to your advantage, maybe it’s a chance to earn some money to move away (or b*gger off around the world- to ride out the recession!), maybe you could do an evening course on the side (i did), or work part time and do a day experience a week somewhere? if you end up down and depressed use it to your advantage and think “oh f**k this, this is not what i want!” it’ll give you the drive to keep at it, keep trying, if you find yourself in this position. don’t. ever. stop. until you get somewhere better.
I graduated with an MPhil from one of the best universities in the country in 2010. I worked on a large library project in an unskilled position (sticking and scanning barcodes on books). I’d say at least half of the 40 or so people working there had Masters or PhDs, several from very prestigious universities. Needless to say, no one had chosen to do this type of work, but no one felt they could leave as it would be impossible to find something else.
I’m so glad that after all the attacks on graduates that finally some evidence that we are actually more willing to take on unskilled work than ever before is out.
I graduated in the summer and have been applying to jobs ever since – as with many graduates I have lost count of the number of applications I have filled out/sent off, especially when you receive nothing back from the companies.In order to earn some semblance of a living while I searched for a more skilled job I have been waitressing with an agency – which I did before my degree!
I’ve documented my whole journey, every up and down, on my blog at http://gutsy-grad.blogspot.co.uk/ Take a look if you’re feeling down…or write your own, it really helps to vent frustrations.
Completely agree with this post and Jonathon White’s comments. It’s not being a snob to expect slightly more than shelf-stacking after three years of a hard degree (law in my case). After all, many of us have done this type of work before and during the degree itself. We’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt.
The main point in going to university is to improve your job prospects, would I honestly have gone knowing I’d end up exactly where I started? In the wonders of hindsight I would probably have been better off doing an apprenticeship or vocational qualification (plumbing, business admin, mechanics etc). Maybe then I’d have had a few years experience and a decent wage under my belt by now. University has been mis-sold to our generation as a miracle route into a secure and well paying job.
I am sure with greater experience, those graduates who equate “low paid” jobs with “unskilled” will appreciate that, even if the candidate is coerced into working for an employer as a “Stockholm Syndrome Worker” (ie Unpaid Internship or Work Programme Placement), unless they are simply sitting doing nothing all day, ]they will have to deliver skills to stakeholders.
Graduated in Law last year (2.1), was unable to find skilled work. Did 6 weeks work experience (for free) in a DWP office, and now work in a supermarket on the deli counter. Glad to have any work at all truth be told.
Graduated from university in 2011, Bachelor Honour’s degree at Business Administration. I have studied so hard all my life, knowing (even when I was little) I would never have to do a physical job, and could work with my brain. But at the moment, after applying for hundreds of lowest jobs, I got a part-time cleaner position, and I clean toilets. I cry ever night I get home because I hate my job, I feel like I hate everyone who works in my place who is higher than me. I don’t know where this is taking me, I got similar jobs and I quit in few days because I felt like I was wasting my time and my abilities, but then due to being short with cash I had to change my mind and start looking for a job again. I worked in a factory fridge where I had to lift heavy things and hurt my back, had to stay in bed for weeks. I am not physically big or strong person, I am a tiny girl.
I have sent mails to every companies here offering them unpaid internship so I could gain some experience, but no response at all! I just feel extremely frustrated, while working I sit on my own for 5 minutes just to cry. I can’t cope with my current situation, because I see no future prospects in this.
Low-skilled, low-paid work – when I can get it – has been my main occupation since graduating BA Hons History 2:1 in 2008. At the age of 42, I do not foresee my employment prospects improving either. However, I have never regretted going to university. New Labour might have got it wrong over Iraq, but they got it right over education. Tony Blair had a great vision for all of Britain, for the children of working-class parents to be able to afford to go to university – through the very fair Student Loans scheme – and for those adults who missed out on a decent education at school to be able to return to education, where they, too, could go to university. The middle-classes were encouraged, too, through various incentives to send their children to university. An individual should get a good education, followed by a better job, which involves a period of intensive training.
The Labour government’s approach between 1997 and 2010 was correct. However, there was a large opposition from business, which is dominated by Conservatives – both business people and politicians, as recently exposed, who do not want an educated workforce which would have a stronger bargaining power to negotiate better terms and conditions for ALL employees. Commerce and Industry has worked hard at maintaining a divided workforce, which saw its greatest ambitions achieved under Margaret Thatcher. At the same time, there were many employers willing to support New Labour.
Tony Blair recognized that the country had become accustomed to a more conservative approach and that only a renewed Labour Party, more akin to Liberal values than Socialist values, ever stood a chance of getting into power and implementing the vision on education. Tony Blair’s vision entailed a monumental shift in attitude, policy and practice. Change on such a scale takes several generations to fully implement and see the results.
The development of modern Britain continues to be erratic with major problems, such as underemployment among undergraduates. It is the result of opposing political and economic factions with differing visions for Britain. Ongoing development of Britain entails changes in the way democracy is practised. We are in a quagmire and change comes from the people.
It is low-paid graduates and unemployed graduates who must play their part in implementing change, possibly even acting as a vanguard. However, party political consciousness somehow needs to be developed before change occurs.
Thanks to Tony Blair students now have to pay 9 grand a year. 50% of people into university is complete stupidity and was never sustainable.
@ME, how do you justify this sweeping generalisation?
@Brian 50% of young people going to university this was just used to keep the unemployment numbers, it does not matter whether you are a graduate or your not there is about 200 people applying for each job. i could be a bore and go into the reasons why there is high unemployment numbers and there all ways will be.
@ Matthew, I think for graduate jobs the average number is actually around 80 applications per position in any industry nationwide, although there would obviously be differences according to regions and industries more specifically. Which is still a huge number, considering usually only 1 out of the 80 people get the job in the end.
I would also agree that the 50% target is rather impractical and silly. Our economy certainly needs an educated workforce, but also a varied workforce – we need people with university degrees, vocational qualifications and even just school-leavers, because the job market is diverse. Rather than pick arbitrary targets and herding people to universities, the government should have invested more effort into providing a variety of educational alternatives so that young people can make an informed choice about their future. A situation where 50% of young people are school-leavers chasing retail jobs and 50% are graduates chasing entry-level admin jobs is really not ideal.
@Kayla
the reason more young people go to university is that the school leavers jobs have either gone to the far east or being done on the cheap by the eastern europeans. so which everway you look at it, it is very hard for young people to get a job.
@matthew, good point. Did you know that there are over one million workers at various Foxconn sites in China. Foxconn supply a range of companies such as Dell, alongside Apple, with electronic devices including the iPhone. And they’re not all high-skilled jobs either it would seem, such as putting guide spots on four corners of the back of an iPhone, but with only 3 seconds to do it as the next one comes by on a conveyor belt. This is the sort of job that could be done in the UK. Then there’s the lost jobs such as the food service jobs lost that would feed the workers, the retail jobs lost that would sell clothes, household items, etc to the workers. Although many of the Foxconn jobs would have been exported from the US, but how many direct and indirect jobs have been lost, and will continue to go to, immigrant workers and the Far East, as you pointed out?
@brian
“putting guide spots on four corners of the back of an iPhone” “this is the sort of job that could be done in the UK” why pay £6.08 an hour to a UK worker when in China you could have six people on about £1.00 per hour, business want cheap labour so they can max there profits jobs like Foxconn will never come back to the UK, this is what will keep high unemployment in the UK.
I think it’s very possible that this is it – the employment market in the UK will stay this way indefinitely. I’m scared as hell about my future.
With regards to university – it has simply become an extension of high school / college. The whole system is a shambles.
@hermit crab
i am worried about my future to applying for jobs and finding out that there could be a 000’s applying for and people with 30 years experience in IT are willing to work for entry level graduate jobs salary because there is no work out there.
Give it soon there will be no shops as the internet shopping seems to be taking over.
@Hermitcrab, I think you’ve every right to be scared. It amazes me how universities seem to be oblivious to what’s going on in the world, since they seem to be carrying on as though we are not in the worst crisis since the 1930s, as though the real world can’t touch them. Are they afraid that if they change their approach that they will all be out of a job, as school-leavers might behave less like grateful students and more like cautious consumers. I think that it would be safe to say that any undergraduate beginning this year stands a good chance that they will suffer unemployment at worst and shop work at best.
@matthew, shop work seems to be treated as a privilege by some employers, to be handed out only to those who will get the tills ringing quick. As you say, more internet shopping cuts out the “middle man”. I’m not totally against internet shopping for items I don’t need to see or try before buying – it has its pros and cons. By the way, even the cheapest labour in China is too expensive for Foxconn,which is due to be replaced by one million robots by 2014/15. One robot for every human.
@brian
i seen that too, so soon china will have the same problems as the UK will have and will soon know how we feel.
I graduated with a degree in Sports Public Relations in 2014 and I find myself in a low-skilled job. The reality is that a growing number of graduates now have to start at the bottom and start with a low-skilled job, it’s not what we want but as long as it gets some sort of income in then it’s better than nothing. I’m using my current job (which I hate) as a lesson to work hard and always aim high. Even though I hate my current job now and I expect to leave after a few months, I’m thankful for the experience.
It’s a tough time for graduates in general with the current job market. In my opinion, it’s best to take a low-skilled job for a bit just to get some money and valuable experience. Then after a few weeks, months, years move on.