Students applying for graduate jobs in September will find that a quarter of vacancies have been filled by last year’s graduates, according to a survey of employers.
The record number of students finishing university this summer face fierce competition for jobs as recruitment remains in the doldrums and unemployed graduates from previous years take the entry level positions on offer. Leading employers cut graduate recruitment by 25 per cent between 2008 and 2009, the survey of top graduate employers indicated.
It also suggested that more than 80,000 people who were unable to find graduate work last year have returned to the employment pool and taken jobs starting in September.
“There is a big backlog to catch up,” Martin Birchall, managing director of High Flyers, the market researchers that carried out the study, said.
“We are not out of the woods yet, it’s going to take another two years before things return to the level of 2006-07.”
The survey also suggested that starting salaries have been frozen for the first time, at an average of £27,000. They rose by 5.9 per cent in 2009 and by 4.9 per cent the year before but will not change in 2010.
The Graduate Market 2010 survey suggests that the 100 biggest graduate employers have increased their vacancies by 11.8 per cent this year compared with 2009.
But cuts in recruitment in the past two years, a significant increase in applications and 25 per cent of positions already taken leaves even fewer graduate opportunities for the class of 2010 than for those who left university last summer.
The Times Online