Graduates set to ride out choppy UK jobs' market

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This material has been reproduced with the kind permission of Management-Issues.com

Demand for graduates from employers is likely to get more, not less, fierce over the next year, despite growing uncertainty over the UK jobs' market, a new survey has suggested.

Yet the lure of going it alone and starting your own business also appears to be strong among students.

The jobs' study by specialist journal IRS Employment Review found employers who recruited new graduates reported a strong demand in 2004/05, with more than half wanting to recruit as many graduates as in the previous year.

Three out of 10 wanted to recruit more and only one in six said they had reduced graduate recruitment.

The overall recruitment picture is one steady as she goes, with no material changes in the labour market for new graduates, it predicted.

There has been no boom and the growth in graduate vacancies has simply kept pace with university output, it added.

While the difficulties employers faced in recruiting suitable graduates had not got worse, nevertheless four out of 10 organisations said they did have problems recruiting the graduates they needed.

The modest upswing in demand was being matched by an equally modest rise in the average starting salary for new graduates, rising by 3 per cent, said IRS Employment Review.

Other key points of the survey included the finding that the growing proportion of graduates with good degrees – firsts or upper seconds – was making it more difficult to choose between applicants.