Blogs: Edward discusses graduate underemployment

Post 1, February 2013

Edward James studied Broadcast Journalism at the University for the Creative Arts, Surrey. One day he hopes to do a Masters in either English literature or journalism, but until then he's on the hunt for a paid internship

The other day, much to my amazement, I found myself listening to BBC Radio 4. Now, I’m not your everyday listener and certainly would not sit well within their average demographic. I’m more inclined to listen to BBC 1Xtra.

However, on this day I sat and listened aghast at what I was hearing. I happened to be listening to a radio phone-in show called You and Yours. The show discussed the issue of graduate unemployment and, more pertinently, the thoroughly overlooked issue of graduate underemployment. Now what, may you ask, is graduate underemployment? Let me break it down for you.

Specifically, graduate underemployment refers to those graduates, like me, who are doing low-level jobs, because there's nothing else going. These low-level jobs can be anything from retail assistant to being a barista at your local Starbucks. How else are you supposed to pay your rent at the end of the month?

That weekend job you did as a student becomes your lifeblood. I do know how comforting it feels to have a job, at the very least. Yet after my last customer is 'thank-you'd' (I work in fashion retail), and having pulled a 40-hour week without much rest, I also know what it means to be tired, annoyed and a little bit hard done by.

Now before you think I'm a snobby graduate who thinks that anything but a graduate career is beneath me, then think again. I can honestly say that working in retail has taught me a few things, about the working world: the importance of being punctual; a smart dress sense; and a keen hard-working attitude.

However, when faced with an uncertain future and mounting debts, trying to stay afloat in an often part-time job with no signs of progression really does not help my cause. If a job offers only 24 hours a week, at the minimum wage, then I really can’t afford to take it. It’s not turning my nose up at it, it’s called being poor, poorer than my friends who didn’t go to university.

The issue of underemployment is not made any easier by older generations sitting on their moral high-horse and berating you for not getting your hands dirty. It’s easy for them to say, from their often lofty positions of financial security. The radio phone in show had one caller who said that all graduates were coming out of university, expecting the world to do them a favour, and that we have no understanding of the 'real' world. I’d be speaking for many when saying that today’s graduates are far more world-weary and are thoroughly aware of 'real' world issues.

Now at this point, you might think why is this guy complaining about having a degree? I’m not complaining, but at this specific moment in time, it actually is quite tough owning a degree. Employers complain that graduates lack sufficient experience in order to compete in the job market. Yet, how are graduates able to gain the said experience when the only 'experience' on offer is unpaid internships? At least with a low-level job, we are being paid a wage to live on.

According to recent figures published by the Office for National Statistics, graduate unemployment stood at 18.9% (roughly one in five graduates) in the final quarter of 2011. Tuition fees have risen, and many institutions have speculated that prospective students are becoming increasingly sceptical about their chances of securing a graduate job.

To make matters worse, a report released by the Centre for Economics and Business Research warned that 55% of graduates in 2012 will be either working in non-graduate jobs or will be unemployed six months after they finish at university. More alarmingly, the number of graduates that were underemployed over the past four years rose from 30% to 42%.

These are supposed to be the best years of our lives. But having little or no money to do anything is not what I toiled six long years for. All we can do is keep applying, keeping our eyes peeled for paid internships and try and remain positive. We cannot allow the older generations of yesteryear to keep berating us for not trying hard enough. When everything's all said and done, the fact remains that we tried harder than they ever did.