Recent graduates are continuing to report difficulties in finding relevant work, amid signs that employers are maintaining reduced recruitment of college and university leavers.
A new poll from specialist recruitment firm Robert Walters found that 62% of graduates said they were struggling to find a relevant professional position in their chosen field.
Nearly half, 44%, were still to find a relevant position, while 18% said it had taken more than six months.
Robert Walters found that more than half of UK employers, 57%, were hiring fewer graduates this year, with 26% stating “a little less” and 31% saying “a lot less”.
More than a third, 39%, of these organisations said limited hiring budgets were the reason, while a quarter said they had reduced capacity to train or upskill, and 22% said their focus had shifted to hiring more senior talent.
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Figures released at the end of April by job search engine Adzuna showed that jobs for graduates had suffered a decline of 8.5% with salaries stagnating.
Habiba Khatoon, director of Robert Walters UK, said employers were cutting back on their intake but there was no shortage of graduates: “With the economy still sluggish, many employers are holding onto their existing workforce – but students are continuing to graduate at the same pace – leading to a consistent funnel of graduates vying over a drought of positions.”
She added that companies looking to shut out fresh graduates at this point of the economic cycle risked problems further down the line: “Employers overlooking these professionals may be saving on headcount costs now but they will run the risk of talent bottlenecks three to five years on, leading to considerable premiums and competition placed on particular roles – something which we saw dominate the period of hiring directly following Covid within accountancy and legal services.”
The current lack of graduate opportunities goes back to at least June last year when Reed Recruitment, one of the UK’s largest employment platforms, reported that number of positions available and marked suitable for graduates was about 40% below 2018 levels. It also found that pay for those posts had declined since the end of 2021. Listings were higher than the depths of the pandemic, but had been waning for more than two years.
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