Landeskunde GB Employment problems in Britain

Glamour posts at a
premium

Competition for prestige positions will be fierce for the class

of 1990

ptimistic forecasts made before the

New Year about demand for graduates
in 1990 are being torn up. There is no
more talk about unprecedented opportunities
for students to shop around for the ideal job.
10Instead, the class of 1990 is being warned that,
although there will be more than enough jobs,
their range of choice will be much more
constricted. They will be told to think more of
long-term job security when targeting their
15career area, rather than the short-term appeal
of money or glamour.
The sectors of the economy suffering most
from high interest rates are now known.
Service industries of all kinds in the South of
20England are under pressure. Manufacturing
industries in the North, especially those with
significant export involvement, are doing
better. The large Blue Chip graduate recruiters
in the private sectors, such as IBM, BP, and
25others agreed that they would be downgrading
their graduate recruitment.
Interest rates are starting to bite. Any
activity associated with housing and mortgages is suffering. Estate agents are finding
30times hard. One leading firm is reducing its
intake from 46 to 35 this year. Retailers, especially those with involvement in household
products and discretionary spending such as
fashion, are likely to be reducing their gradu35ate intake. One of the high street fashion
chains is reducing its graduate intake by half
this year.
But it is not all doom and gloom. There are
areas of growth. Events on the Continent,
40particularly in Eastern Europe, have put a
premium on those graduates able to operate
abroad. Graduates fluent in European languages linked to work experience in the EC
will be very attractive. The same goes for
45those with Eastern European languages.
But it is likely to be a two-way process. For
the first time, British companies such as Marks

and Spencer have begun to look for

continental graduates. In 1990 employers will
50be looking for more top quality graduates
defined either by their outstanding personal
qualities, previous work experience or strong
vocational skills than ever before. The
squeeze will be on the marginal graduate.
55 Graduates with no record of extra-curricular achievement, vocational qualifications or
work experience will find themselves at a
disadvantage. Arts graduates, in particular, will
be at risk. They should turn to the public
60sector and the recently privatised utilities, such
as British Gas, British Telecom and the water
authorities. British Gas, for example, is
recruiting 285 graduates this year instead of
240 last year.
65 under the Governments reorganisation of
the National Health Service, administrators are
being replaced by analytical-minded managers
to handle the change. It is not surprising to
learn that there is a major review taking place
70to see how many more graduates will be
needed over and above the 50 they tried to
recruit last year.
In fact, the NHS only recruited 38, with
many of their offers being turned down in
75favour of more attractive jobs. Graduates
should no longer view public services as
second best in terms of job satisfaction compared with the private sector. The great administrative bureaucratic structures have been
80broken up into leaner, meaner entities. Over
the next five years, no matter what the result
of the next election, the public services can
expect some relaxation of limits on investment. Anyone joining the public service of the
85Nineties is probably coming in at the start of
another cycle of growth.
[Adapted from THE OBSERVER, Feb 11,
1990; 566 words.]

hm-abo Mrz 1990

Landeskunde GB Employment problems in Britain

hm-abo Mrz 1990