Construction graduates hardest hit as unemployment doubles

Citation

(2010), "Construction graduates hardest hit as unemployment doubles", Structural Survey, Vol. 28 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2010.11028cab.002

Construction graduates hardest hit as unemployment doubles

Article Type: Newsbriefs From: Structural Survey, Volume 28, Issue 3

Keywords: Construction, Employment, Graduates, Recession

As the unemployment prospects for university leavers have seen a year-on-year increase of 44 per cent, rising to a highest level in 12 years, the construction industry has been the hardest hit reveals a study by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU). The rate of unemployment increased 2.4 percentage points to 7.9 per cent for the 220,065 students surveyed in January 2009 and who graduated in 2008, reveals HECSU’s What Do Graduates Do? The last time graduate unemployment reached this level was in 1995/1996 (8.1 per cent). The construction industry has been particularly hard hit, as architecture and building graduate unemployment more than doubled from 2.9 per cent in 2007 to 8.5 per cent for 2008 leavers. Similarly, unemployment for civil engineering graduates increased from 2.4 per cent to 7 per cent. What Do Graduates Do? also found that there has been a year on year decrease in the number of graduates going into town planning or surveying (down 14 per cent from 1,735 to 1,495) and architectural technicians or assistants (down 31 per cent from 865 to 595).