Member Article

North East has lowest concentration of graduates in the country

The North East has the lowest concentration of graduates of any region in the country, new data from the Office for National Statistics has confirmed.

29% of people living in the North East between January and December 2012 were graduates, compared to 40% in the South East, and 33% closer to home in the North West.

The ONS’ Graduates in the UK labour market report looked at all adults living in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course.

Unemployment among North East graduates was third highest of all regions, below outer and inner London.

Nationally, the report found nearly half of recent graduates were employed in a non-graduate role, while a third were working a ‘low skilled role.’

The study deemed non-graduate jobs as those which did not require higher educational background, such as secretaries, sales assistants, factory workers and care workers.

Recent graduates were shown to have consistently higher unemployment rates than older graduates and older non-graduates.

Last year 9% of recent graduates were unemployed while 3% of graduates who had been out of full-time education for more than five years were experiencing unemployment.

Salaries for graduates in the first year of repayment fell 12% in real terms between 2007 and 2011.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of job search platform Adzuna, commented: “The economic recovery has reinvigorated a wilting jobs market, with the number of advertised jobs in September 3% higher than a year ago. There are now just 1.9 jobseekers competing for each vacancy, compared to 2.3 in September 2012.

“But for those who are fresh out of university, the prospects of finding that first job remain gloomy. Despite signs of a wider jobs recovery, the pick-up in the graduate jobs market has been less pronounced. As a result, 47% of recent graduates were working within non-graduate roles in September – a 38% increase from 2008.

“In the face of fierce competition, many grads are being forced to take on lower-skilled jobs. Our last jobs report found that there were more than 50 graduates competing for every entry level job in September. Advertised graduate salaries fell 3.4% compared to last September, and our latest data shows graduate vacancies have fallen 19% in the past year to October. Such difficult prospects, hand-in-hand with higher tuition fees, spell challenging financial times ahead for recent grads.”

More information on the ONS report can be found here.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .