One of the biggest surprises of this recession has been the substantial number of redundancies in traditionally secure roles. This has affected areas of the country not normally touched by recession, particularly the south-east. With a significant number of unemployed white collar workers not even signing on, there is a huge hidden problem.
Did you know...
1. On average, the UK's top employers have received 45 applications for each of their graduate vacancies this year, almost a third more than the average of 35 applicants per vacancy in 2008.
2. Looking ahead to 2010, half of leading employers believe that they will hire a similar level of graduates to this year, a fifth believe their intake will increase but almost a quarter warn of further reductions in their recruitment.
3. In total, Britain's top employers have recruited 14,370 graduates to start work later this year. The original recruitment target for 2009 was 19,951 vacancies and these same organisations hired 16,614 graduates in 2008.
- From The Graduate Market in 2009 (High Fliers Research http://www.highfliers.co.uk)
The government has responded to this new problem by promising more help from the Job Centres, who are not used to dealing with so many white-collar, newly unemployed. Dispatches has discovered that there is just one back-to work scheme for unemployed professionals, which the government are spending £3 million on. The £3 million will fund 20,000 places on the 'Job Search for the Newly Unemployed Professionals Course', which cost £150 per head. But, official statistics show that, since April 2008, there have been almost a quarter of a million redundancies (242,000) in the finance and business sectors alone. And compare this £3 million to the £1bn Government is spending on the Future Jobs Fund for young people. (Source: www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0809.pdf table 24).
Typical profiles of the new jobless:
The marketing director
Matt is in his early 40s. He's been unemployed only a few months so far but describes the job situation as 'horrendous'. He spends his days scouring job ads and talking to recruitment agencies. He's had no luck despite having travelled as far afield as Dublin and LA in search of new work. He and his wife have two children in private school and their financial problems are mounting.
The graduate
Adam has graduated recently with a degree in Information and Business Studies. He and his family are beginning to wonder if university was in fact the best option for him, as he’s now saddled with debt and frustration. Would he have been better off doing an apprenticeship instead? The government's answer to the surfeit of jobless graduates, the Graduate Talent Pool, offers him nothing, and he can't afford to do unpaid internship work.
The HR director
Zoe was on a high salary with a technology company until she effectively made herself redundant due to the downturn. Although her husband has a secure income, Zoe was by far the bigger bread-winner and her lack of income is taking its toll.
