Recruitment Advice

Its more bad news for students as there is a record number of graduates leaving university this year and a downturn in the amount of available vacancies.

Vacancies for graduates are set to drop for the first time since 2003 and starting salaries are expected to be frozen. The Association of Graduate Recruiters’ (AGR) winter survey found that for the first time in its 22 year history, starting salaries will stay the same. The average salary last year was £25,000.

Overall the amount of vacancies is expected to decrease by 5.4% with employers blaming the recession for the drop and 46% of the 245 organisations surveyed said they were expecting to hire fewer graduates this year. There is a big contrast the the summer surveys that were completed which predicted a growth this year of around 11.7%.

Age equality supporters have stepped up their campaign to scrap mandatory retirement ages in a response to decrease the number of redundancies amongst older workers.

Figures from the office of national statistics show that unemployment amongst over 50’s was up 27% over the last quarter, compared to a rise of just 8% amongst those aged between 24 and 49.

Age concern have said that only one in five of the over 50’s who lose there jobs are back in work two years later, they have urged the government to scrap the pointless mandatory retirement age so people who want and need to continue working can do so.

Last week the House Of Lords expressed support for the campaign by Heyday to make fixed retirement age unlawful.

Watching this weeks Dispatches programme Too Old To Work it made me think how hard it must be, to be out of work for the rest of your life regardless of whether you want to work or not. As a recruiter it made me think about the fairly new legistlation in a new light.

As the amount of unemployed people in the UK is about to reach £2 million the programme shows how bad age discrimination in the UK actually is, despite the law.

The investigation shows that being older is being classed as a risk in the workplace, older people are more likely to lose there job and fail to secure another position. With the current job market being flooded with candidates it has become a very competitive market, this is leaving older people to look less attractive as a new employee.

The programme reveals that the commonly-held prejudices against older people may be entirely misplaced because many have as active, if not more active brains than their younger counterparts.

Nissan are set to reduce there employee headcount by 8.5% over the next year due to a sharp decline in sales. The Japanese carmaker made the announcement as it said it expected to make a loss of £2 billion for its current financial year which ends in march.  Just three months after predicting it would make £1.9 billion profit.

Nissan have confirmed that the job cuts will be between March 2009 and March 2010, however they have not said which plants will see the job cuts, and how many. The company had already announced job cuts last month including 1200 at its Sunderland plant.

Other car manufactures are seeing a similar shrink in sales GM and Chrysler two of Americas biggest carmakers have already taken emergency loans from the US government. In the Uk, Ford last week confirmed that they have planned to make 850 more redundancies over coming months.

A number of government measures are planned to take place during 2009 to improve skills for both employed and unemployed people across all sectors. The initiatives will start by

• Creating 35,000 new apprenticeship places
• A full-time community volunteering programme for people not in employment, education and training
• Establishing a panel to remove barriers that prevent fair access to professional jobs
• Trebling the number of career development and professional loans over the next two years
• A £500 back to work entitlement for parents and carers
• An employment support programme for young people leaving care

These changes will help to improve the current unemployment market which is currently at 2 million.