Graduate recruitment slashed. Scary stuff.

I’m starting my blog with the depressing news that university graduates are facing the toughest struggle in history to find work.

This is something I’ve been experiencing first hand, having recently decided to change career from scientific editorial to the heady world of online journalism.

Unfortunately, choosing to do this in the midst of a global economic horror film wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but there you go. At least I have my health.

Anyway, over the weekend, the Guardian outlined the following evidence that graduates are up the creek without a paddle:

• Major companies have narrowed their search for graduates to five elite universities as they cut recruitment numbers.

• The organisers of the annual graduate recruitment "milk round" say jobs in finance and retail are drying up. Even where companies are recruiting, vacancies will not necessarily last until summer as the economic slump worsens.

• The management consultancy KPMG, seen as a recruitment barometer, says its 600 graduate entry jobs are nearly all taken months ahead of schedule as students scramble for the top jobs.

• Manchester University careers service, the largest outside London, has seen the number of recruitment adverts taken out with its careers service tail off drastically.

• Careers service managers have been inundated with desperate students who don't know what to do when they graduate because their plans are in tatters.

• The slump in graduate jobs threatens unemployment for people with lower or no qualifications as graduates turn their sights on non-graduate vacancies.

Ouch. This lack of opportunity will inevitably discourage potential students from applying to University. However, Francis Green, professor of economics at Kent University disagrees, telling the Times Online that:

“It doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to get three years of education and end up in a fairly ordinary job. First, they may do that job better than they might otherwise have done and get paid more than nongraduates.

“Secondly, they should have gained some pleasure and benefit - studying English literature, for example, should at least mean they enjoy reading books more for the rest of their life.”

Excuse me? At least going to university gives you an appreciation for reading books? Aren’t schools supposed to do that? And the last time I looked, going to school (well, public schools) doesn’t run up crippling debt that can seriously impact your early career development and limit your opportunities.

A quick scour of various graduate recruitment sites shows how they’re feeling the strain, particularly in the finance industry. Banks are narrowing their search for finance jobs (quell surprise), with recruitment falling by 50% in 2007 and further cuts planned for 2009.

But this dearth of opportunity isn’t confined to banking, the pinch is almost universal.

Paul Farrer, chairman of PFJ recruitment told The Graduate Recruitment Company that media companies are ignoring the lessons from previous recessions and significantly cutting their graduate in-take, predicting that in a few years the industry will suffer an “extreme skills shortage”.

“Following the lessons of the last two economic downturns media companies have vowed to maintain strategy in recruiting fresh graduate talent to insure against skills shortages that are so costly in a growth economy. Sadly the handbreak is already on… and a huge potential source of energy and innovation is being quickly turned off.”

So what can us graduates do about it? Well, I don’t know to be honest. I’ve set up as self-employed because there are few journalism jobs in the North West, and am getting by writing for various clients. But I have no idea how this will pan out, and right now it’s a matter of survival, not growth and development.