Recovery position

The View from HECSU by Charlie Ball

Today’s AGR survey findings reinforce that we are in a recovery – or at least a recovery for graduates. This builds on the High Fliers report from last week, and is very much along the same lines. That’s not surprising, as they’re both surveying the same employers – but the AGR has twice as many.

Let’s not fixate too much on the specific numbers – public sector recruitment will not be up 13% this year, the figure merely represents how important Teach First is to the sample. The AGR survey is excellent data for the AGR sample, but it’s not yet representative of the entire graduate jobs market. In that vein, it’s refreshing to see that the AGR have not included a salary figure in the press release as their salary figures, although fine in context of their high profile, high status graduate training schemes, are some way away from the experience of most graduates.

The crucial thing is that employment is on the up, and for graduates, the recession is essentially over and we’re well into recovery. Another sign that this is taking place is in the AGR noting that vacancies are going unfilled and students are turning down job offers. Some of the offers that business has become used to making in the last few years will look less attractive in a job market that is improving, and with applicants who are more confident that they have other options. And there are outright skills shortages - the AGR mention IT, where all the reports agree there are developing shortages of graduates.

So, the signs are that after a long period where employers held the all the cards when dealing with students and graduates, that the advantage may be moving back towards applicants. That doesn’t mean graduates won't have to work hard to get jobs, but it does mean that this year’s finalists can be a little more confident about the future.

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