Graduate jobs being advertised on job boards have dropped by nearly two-thirds year-on-year.
This is according to CV-Library who found that the number of graduate jobs advertised decreased by 60 per cent, with graduate roles in construction, marketing and recruitment experiencing even larger drops.
Graduate job searching for university leavers have also fallen by 8 per cent year-on-year. Applications made to graduate roles have also dropped by 33 per cent year-on-year. However, some graduate areas have seen an increase such as catering (up 58 per cent), customer service (up 45 per cent), social care (up 43 per cent), IT (up 9 per cent) and the public sector (up 5 per cent).
The average pay for a graduate job has risen slightly to £24,626 per annum, which is a 7 per cent increase compared to 2019. Some industries do pay higher than the average graduate salary, such as the public sector (£34,000), retail (£33,550), property (£30,235), catering (£27,500), IT (£27,290), accounting/finance (£27,074), media (£26,958), legal (£26,738), design (£26,266) and sales (£26,002).
Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, said:
It’s a difficult time for everyone, not least the newest entrants to the job market, whose career prospects have been shattered by COVID-19. The Government is making inroads by creating more job opportunities for young people through its Kickstarter scheme, but whether this is enough remains to be seen. Unfortunately, job numbers are down across the board and it’s going to take a very long time until they return to normal levels. As our numbers show, competition for the roles that are available is rife and graduates will be under a lot of pressure to impress employers throughout the recruitment process.
It’s a promising sign that pay is up across these major industries and locations, but this is isn’t a trend that we’re expecting to continue. Unfortunately, the purse strings are tightening for many organisations and while it’s not unusual for salaries to fluctuate depending on the sector or location you work in, it’s not sustainable given the current economic situation.
In order to collate this research, CV-Library compared its own data between January and July 2020 to the same period in 2019.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
