Government tells IT students “Sorry, you’re not employable”

The BBC has just broadcast a report which tells IT students across the UK that they have made a terrible choice with their studies. Now, several months after getting their exam results, through, IT students find themselves ‘least employable'. KitGuru investigates.

As the UK government seems intent on increasing student fees yet again following Lord Browne's review on higher education funding, the underlying logic may finally be clear. Graduate unemployment levels will be at their highest for 17 years. Grim reading for someone who has just completed their course and is now £30,000 (~$50,000) in debt to the government.

To have 21,000 new graduates unemployed is one number, but when you consider that (traditionally) many graduates would get their first job in a government-related post, you can see why the sitaution seems to bleak. The UK government has just cut around 500,000 jobs and won't be in a hurry to recreate them any time soon.

IT was long thought of as the ‘safe option'. Worst case scenario, you can always get a job in IT. However, as computers became faster and faster, so the development tools became more sophisticated and the fast transfer speeds available on the world wide interwibble mean that an IT job can often be done from anywhere in the world. Increased competition and outsourcing means that IT jobs have left the UK at a tremendous rate.

At the peak of the UK's last major recession, overall graduate unemployment hit 11.6% while today's figures show that for IT graduates, the rate is already 38% higher at 16%.

UK IT graduate unemployment is 38% higher than the worst figures ever experienced. Damning stuff.

KitGuru says:  Getting data processed has slipped down the agenda as other questions like “Where will we live, what will we eat and why do I feel like killing myself?” have becomemore important. Correspondingly, the graduates in most demand are those with geography and psychology-related degrees.

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