'I applied for 60 jobs but got nothing': As graduate starts unpaid internship, the number of shelf stackers with a degree DOUBLES in just six years

Nearly one student in ten was unemployed six months after graduating

Women graduates fare better than men in the job market, data suggest

But two-thirds of graduates still make it into 'professional' occupations

Poorly paid: Former bar worker and graduate Tom MacDonald who has been struggling to get a job

Tom MacDonald spent nine months working in a hotel bar on the minimum wage after graduating last year.
Mr MacDonald, 22, who gained a 2.1 degree in medical and veterinary biochemistry from Swansea University, repeatedly applied for graduate jobs in finance.
He obtained a few interviews but was unsuccessful and was forced to move back to his parents’ home in Rochester, Kent.
He said: ‘I applied for about 15 to 20 graduate jobs, but eventually just needed anything.
'While I was at the hotel, I must have applied for about 40 graduate schemes.’
Mr MacDonald worked up to 13 hours a day at Brands Hatch Place Hotel in Kent, receiving £6.19 an hour.
He said: ‘Working for minimum wage made doing a degree feel like a waste of time.’
Last week he secured a three-month paid internship with a London commodities company, although the placement does not guarantee him a permanent job.
The number of new graduates taking menial jobs such as shelf stackers and rubbish collectors has almost doubled in six years, official figures reveal.
Some 9,695 – six per cent of those looking for jobs – took up posts that did not require degrees after leaving university in 2012.

 

These included working as bar staff, waiters and waitresses, hotel porters, couriers, mail sorters and window cleaners.
This compares with the 5,460, or four per cent of students, who ended up in these  ‘elementary occupations’ six months after graduating before the recession in 2007, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
The figures also showed that women are faring better than men in the job market.

Is it worth the effort? Figures published today showed 20,000 students were unemployed six months after getting their degrees, with men more likely to be out of work than women

More than one in ten (10.9 per cent) of male graduates whose whereabouts were known six months after they finished their first degree were jobless, compared to 7.2 per cent of women.
The statistics will be particularly alarming for undergraduates who started degree courses last September, when tuition fees tripled to £9,000-a-year. It has been estimated that some could leave saddled with debts of £30,000. Overall, more than 20,000 – nine per cent – of graduates were out of work after failing to gain even menial jobs six months after completing their degree in 2012. This is the same proportion as 2011.
Among the graduates who did secure employment, 36 per cent – 57,785 – were classified as being in ‘non-professional’ jobs.
This included 745 working as plant and machine operatives, 21,025 who ended up in sales, 10,555 who were working in the leisure industry, 1,980 in skilled trades and 13,785 in secretarial jobs.
Among the 9,695 graduates working in the ‘elementary occupations’, 1,990 came from creative arts and design degree courses and 1,300 from biological sciences.

BA in photocopying studies: More than a third of new graduates working in the UK were in 'non-professional' jobs that did not necessarily require a degree, like office junior, the most recent figures showed

One in five – 145 – of the graduates who became plant operatives were from the creative arts. There were 1,760 students from social sciences degree courses working as secretaries, along with 2,895 from business and administrative studies and 1,575 from biological sciences.
The statistics were based on a survey of more than 400,000 2012 UK and EU graduates. This included 232,110 full-time first degree holders.
HESA said there had been some minor changes to the occupational classifications made by the Office for National Statistics but comparisons could still be made.
Pete Mercer, a National Union of Students vice-president said: ‘Under-employment is a growing problem, particularly for those at the beginning of their careers. Students and graduates are ready to take a real role in creating the jobs and economy we need, and have the skills to do it, but need some support from government and business.’

Three years study for this? Around 9,695 graduates were working in 'elementary occupations', taking jobs as hospital porters, waiters, bartenders, road sweepers, window cleaners and shelf stackers

A spokesman for the University and College Union, added: ‘If we are to have any chance of being a major player on the global stage we need to be investing in skills at both university and college level.’
Meanwhile university applications fell after the cap on tuition fees was raised last September. Figures show that overall entry rates in England – where fees were the highest – slumped by 51,000 in just 12 months.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) said that this ‘substantial’ 13 per cent decline in numbers last September was directly associated to the rise in the cost of a degree.
Some suffered significantly sharper declines, with even members of the prestigious-experiencing a drop in admission rates.