Coventry Airport to create 10,000 new jobs

A major scheme to invest £250 million in the redevelopment of Coventry Airport is expected to create 10,000 new jobs, including some for graduates.

Sir Peter Rigby, who bought the airport in April 2010, said the money would go towards two development projects to improve the airport's infrastructure and to build a technology office park.

Sir Peter said a joint venture company will be formed with a major developer to complete the project.

He said passenger flights would also be re-established as part of the proposed development.

He added: "Our plans to improve the airport's infrastructure and facilities will benefit the entire West Midlands because we want Coventry Airport to act as an economic catalyst for job creation and income generation.

"As soon as is practicable, we aim to re-establish passenger airlines which will reduce travel time for business and leisure travellers and, crucially at this time, our proposals will lead to the creation of up to 10,000 jobs directly and indirectly.

"We would have the immediate capacity to serve one million passengers a year by re-starting airline operations."

Welcoming the development plan, chief executive of Coventry City Council said it would provide "a much needed boost" for the region.

Source: Graduate-jobs.com, Wednesday 27th April 2011

I'm made up to land a job Down Under

A young make-up artist has landed her dream job Down Under less than a year after graduating. Kayleigh Sutherland, 22, has been given a hair and make-up artistry position in the Sydney Opera House, working with the Australian Opera Company.

Miss Sutherland, from Clifton, near Newbridge, will be moving to Australia on Tuesday.

She landed the position after working with the Australian Opera Company last summer during the Edinburgh International Festival, when she was given the opportunity to do make-up and wig work.

When a position came up with the opera company just a few months later, Miss Sutherland - who had kept in contact with the head make-up artist - was offered the job.

The James Watt College graduate will be working in theatrical and special effects make-up artistry, firstly in the Melbourne Arts Centre then on to the Sydney Opera House.

She said: "It is a fantastic opportunity for me and one that I am extremely pleased to be doing.

"The job will have me working with colleagues from all around the world and from a range of backgrounds.

"I think the experience will be inspirational and extremely rewarding for my career.

"I'm getting to do what I trained in so I'm very lucky."

Miss Sutherland, a former Craigmount High School pupil, is no stranger to working on big projects, having worked with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama on War and Peace.

She has also worked on other recent theatre productions such as Porgy and Bess, and Bliss, which showed at the Festival Theatre last summer.

Her portfolio includes work for the BBC, the Bafta- nominated feature film Electric Man and T in the Park.

Miss Sutherland, who studied HND make-up artistry and graduated last June, said she owes her lucky break to her college lecturers.

She said: "A few days into the course, I knew this was the career I wanted to pursue.

"It merges all my interests and I love how there isn't a focus on one thing. You learn everything from wig-making to understanding how the make-up works with the outfits.

"Initially I wanted to practice in special effects, however later I realised theatre work was where my interests lay.

"I found the lecturers brilliant and really encouraging. They supplied us with industry contacts which we would get work experience from.

"If it wasn't for this, I wouldn't have been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the Australian Opera Company."

Source: News.Scotsman.com, Friday 29th April 2011

The Hempel in London recruits first Recruitment Academy Graduate

Glenn Gridley from Westminster Kingsway College signed up to the Recruitment Academy website after attending an Academy employer event a little over three weeks ago. Now he's in part-time employment with the five-star London Boutique Hotel.

Gridley graduated in the Professional Cookery Diploma VRQ Level 1 and will be working closely with events to develop his front of house skills.

He said he is extremely excited about his new role: "It was a very simple process I merely heard about the Recruitment Academy through our college and attended an employer engagement event where I spoke to Yvonne. I'm glad I got the job because it is an amazing place to work."

The Recruitment Academy bridges the gap between education and industry, linking excellent hospitality graduates direct to employers who wish to get the right talent in their restaurants, hotels, bars and kitchens.

Yvonne Schauer, human resources and training manager of the Hempel, employed Gridley and definitely sees the benefits in being a member of the Recruitment Academy: "The Recruitment Academy is a fantastic online site which ensures The Hempel recruits the very best due to the caliber of students on the site. We are able to research the student before contacting them and are satisfied with knowing that all students who are on the site have come from colleges who have been endorsed by The National Skills Academy Hospitality for their excellence."

There are currently 1,000 students entering the site yearly who have graduated from The National Skills Academy for Hospitality's endorsed colleges for their excellent content and delivery. These colleges create excellent quality graduates ready to be matched to their perfect employer.


Source: EatOutMagazine.co.uk, Wednesday 27th April 2011

PwC reports largest ever graduate recruitment intake

Accountancy firm PwC has taken on 209 new graduates this April, the highest ever number to join through its annual Spring intake.

Some 5,877 applications were received for 209 places to start in Spring, meaning approximately 30 people applied for each vacancy. This amounts to a 446% increase in applications to the Spring entry on 2009 applications, and a 192% increase on last year.

Although the majority graduated last year, a third of this intake graduated in 2008 and 2009, demonstrating how even some of the best of those who graduated mid recession are only now entering the employment market.

Richard Irwin, PwC Head of Student Recruitment, said:"PwC is committed to recruiting graduate talent with a diverse range of experience, and the firm's Spring intake provides a compelling opportunity for students who don't want to wait until September to commence their careers.

"Only a quarter of the new Spring trainees studied accounting, banking and finance degrees, while over a quarter studied science and engineering. This is just one aspect of the kind of diversity we value in our graduate recruits."

The shifting post-recession job market is forcing new graduates to make difficult choices. A considerable 31% of new trainees are over 25 while 4% are over 30, suggesting professional services is a popular choice for career changers, also possibly due to a squeeze in other industries. Applications are now open to join the firm in September 2011 and April 2012.

Source: David Woods, HRMagazine.co.uk, Wednesday 27th April 2011

15-year-old boy given standing ovation at teachers' conference

A 15-year-old boy was given a standing ovation at a teachers' conference after his speech on the axing of the education maintenance allowance (EMA).

Joe Cotton urged the National Union of Teachers to do all they could to keep education "affordable and accessible".

The GCSE student, from Calder High School, Yorkshire, said scrapping the EMA did not make economic sense.

The government is replacing the scheme to keep poorer pupils in education with what it says is a more targeted grant.

But the weekly allowance of up to £30 was closed to new applicants in a cost-saving government measure.

Joe, from Hebden Bridge, told the 1,100-strong NUT conference in Harrogate: "Like many other people, recent events have made me really aware of the effects that political decisions can have on my life.

"At the moment, education as we know it is under threat.

"Despite pledges and promises, tuition fees are trebling and vital schemes like SureStart and the educational maintenance allowance are being axed.

"Today, I'd like to stress how important it is that the EMA at least is protected."

He added: "In the words of Nadine, one of the 650,000 college students who currently receive it; 'EMA means I can go to college. Without it I just couldn't manage'."

He claimed that the EMA replacement announced last month was receiving £400m less funding and added: "Well I don't know how nifty Michael Gove thinks he can be with a loaf and some fishes, or even a bus pass and some text books, but he's going to need nothing short of a miracle to replicate the benefits of the EMA with that budget."

To applause from the floor, the teenager added: "I believe that if even one student is unable to continue education based on their family's income and not their ability, then the government has failed in its responsibility to uphold basic rights to education."

After he finished speaking, NUT general secretary Christine Blower took to the stage to congratulate him saying: "Now that's what comprehensive education can do."

And he was given a standing ovation by the delegates.

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Joe said he was invited by a member of the NUT executive to speak at the conference after he spoke at a rally in Halifax.

He admitted he enjoyed the attention of public speaking and that he wanted to be a teacher, but had also considered a career in politics.

Joe predicted that many young people would be politicised by the cuts and changes to the education system.

He said politicians had their "heads in the clouds" if they thought scrapping the EMA and trebling university fees would not deter young people from staying on in education.

His mother Sarah Cotton said she was proud her son had made the effort to get himself fully informed about the issues.

James Mills, from the Save EMA campaign, said Joe had shown "a knowledge and understanding of the importance of EMA".

"It's a shame that Joe and many hundreds of thousands of young people like him will now find getting an education in this country is something that is harder than it was before," he said.

"The young people who rely on the payments know how vital they are; it seems only Michael Gove is ignorant of the benefits of EMA."

Under the government's new £180m scheme some 12,000 teenagers with the greatest need will receive up to £1,200 per year. These include pupils in care, care leavers and the severely disabled.

After these payments, there will be £165m for colleges and schools to make discretionary payments to support low-income students with costs such as transport, food and books.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "We are providing targeted financial support for the most vulnerable 16-19 year-olds.

"£180m will be available for a new bursary fund - enough to ensure that every child eligible for free school meals who chooses to stay on could be paid £800 per year.

"This is more than many receive under the current EMA arrangements."

Source: BBC.co.uk, Monday 25th April 2011

Uproot to the Orient

For graduates anticipating a career as a senior academic, the possibility of uprooting from the west and going east ought to be considered according to a report from the Guardian this week. Chinese universities are currently involved in a multi million pound spending spree to tempt UK and USA academics to take positions in China.

With universities offering sumptuous salaries of between $100,000 (£61,000) to $200,000 per year for varying positions, increasing numbers of UK academics are struggling to resist utilising their talent to attain private, as well as professional, affluence.

For over a decade the Chinese government has put momentous investment into its universities, concentrating its spending on the top 10 Chinese higher education institutions. Over fourteen years ago the government commenced the incline of Chinese higher education with the launch of Project 985, a three year grant's programme of around £2.8bn, to be divided among flourishing universities. Deciding to continue with the numbers theme, the government then launched the 1000 Talents Programme, a scheme intending to recruit academics from all over the world, specifically those who were born in China and had since reached professional level. According to research conducted by Professor David Zweig of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, subsequent to such educational investment, the number of academic returnees to China increased rapidly from 7000 in 1999 to 30,000 in 2005. Though the Chinese Ministry of Science disputes the 2005 figure, maintaining that the totality of academic returnees was closer to 35,000, the success of the government's objective is undoubtedly apparent.

With the 1000 Talent's programme successfully tempting Chinese born academics to leave their positions as UK and USA academics to return to the east, the government has this year, revised the scheme with the creation of the Young 1000 Talents Programme. This programme hopes to lure over 400 young overseas academics in the fields of Natural Science and Physics to research and teach in China. Accepting academics will receive a living subsidiary of £50,000 and will additionally be entitled to research grants of up to £300,000 over a period of 3 years. Against a backdrop of job cuts and a severe deflation in the UK higher education system, such an offer is an increasingly attractive proposition to UK junior academics as well as university-leavers hoping to break into this field.

While it may seem to some that this is the beginning of the UK's headlong decline for harbouring the best research academics, Professor Cong Cao from the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham disagrees. Commenting, and consequently casting a dark cloud over this thus-far shining report of Chinese Universities, Cao says "Chinese Universities may be producing large numbers of scientific papers but the quality is still much lower than the UK & USA". This uncertainty in China's ability to become the next higher education superpower is also supported by the Executive Vice President of Peking University, Lin Jianhua who predicts that it would take two generations to produce a creative environment comparable to Harvard or Oxford.

While Cao and Jianhua predict that it is too early for the UK government to panic that the best researchers in the country will be rushing to catch the next plane to China, graduates aiming for a career in academia may wish to monitor this trend over the coming months.

Source: GraduateRecruitmentBureau.uk.com, Thursday 21st April 2011

David Cameron backs right of middle-class families to give children a 'leg-up’ by exploiting their contacts — despite the practice being condemned by Nick Clegg.

In an interview published in The Telegraph, the Prime Minister said he would continue helping friends by offering their children internships, saying he was “very relaxed” about the situation. He even disclosed that he had invited a neighbour in for a work placement at his office.

The comments undermined his deputy, the Liberal Democrat leader, who recently said internships for the well-connected were one of the major forces preventing social mobility in Britain.

In the interview, Mr Cameron gave the most personal insight yet into his life as Prime Minister, just under a year after taking office.

He talked about a recent visit he made to the grave of his son, Ivan, who died in 2009 and said welcoming Baroness Thatcher to No10 was like an “out of body experience”. However, Mr Cameron admitted that not winning an outright majority at last year’s election had disappointed Tory supporters.

His decision to disagree publicly with one of Mr Clegg’s most high-profile policy interventions is likely to anger Liberal Democrats, who already resented Mr Cameron’s recent attacks in the debate on the Alternative Vote.

In the interview, Mr Cameron said it was “fine” to help people you knew. “I’ve got my neighbour coming in for an internship,” he said. “In the modern world, of course you’re always going to have internships and interns – people who come and help in your office who come through all sorts of contacts, friendly, political, whatever.

“I do that and I’ll go on doing that. I feel very relaxed about it.”

Earlier this month, Mr Clegg attacked the system that Mr Cameron has now endorsed, describing it as one of the barriers to poor Britons rising up the social hierarchy.

The Deputy Prime Minister criticised the system in which the “sharp-elbowed” and “well-connected” were the only ones with access to the top internships. He said professional life should be “about what you know, not who you know”.

Mr Cameron said Mr Clegg was “trying to make a fair point”, but happily admitted that as a young man he, like Mr Clegg, was helped out by his family connections, getting experience in his father’s stockbrokers. He called that break a “definite leg-up internship”.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, Friday 22nd April 2011

11,000 Finance Jobs In London Over Next 3 Years

A survey by the real estate wing of the BNP Paribas business suggests good news on graduate finance jobs in London as the City is forecast to advertise 11,000 new vacancies over the next three years.

After a bit of a bruising time during the recession it looks like confidence is returning quite quickly to the City as the majority of leading banks and financial firms in London say they are looking to develop their business in the next few years.

Over half of the financial businesses surveyed in the BNP Paribas report said they would have new jobs on offer in the near future. Many of those vacancies will be made of new London graduate finance positions and that should ease the pressure on the wider graduate job market.

Just 1 in 20 of the London finance companies canvassed for their opinions claimed that they would be making a reduction to their staffing levels over the next three years.

Also set to benefit from the increased supply of financial jobs in London are the landlords of the City. If 11,000 extra new staff need to be housed in London in general finance positions or graduate jobs then an extra 1.6 million square metres of office space will be required.

Many of the new London graduate finance jobs on offer could come at smaller companies in the finance sector rather than at the huge banks that traditionally employ graduates each year.

Source: Employment4Students.co.uk, Sunday 17th April 2011

Handsome men more likely to win graduate opportunities

Handsome men might find they are more successful at winning graduate jobs if they include a photo on their CVs.

That is to be inferred from a new report by researchers Bradley Ruffle and Ze'ev Shtudiner to be presented to the Royal Economic Society, which revealed that good-looking men are more likely to get interviews than their less aesthetically-pleasing counterparts.

Interestingly, the research of more than 5,000 CVs that were submitted for 2,650 job vacancies indicated that women are not so lucky, with attractive females less likely to get through the first stage of the recruitment process.

Women with no picture on their CV were 22 per cent more likely to receive a response to an application, while those with a plain picture saw their chances boosted even more, by 30 per cent in total.

The researchers noted: "The evidence points to female jealousy of attractive women in the workplace as a primary reason for their penalisation in recruitment."

This information could help people applying for jobs across Europe, with the latest Markit Flash Eurozone Composite Output Index suggesting that job creation rates are up across the eurozone.

Source: Gradplus.com, Wednesday 20th April 2011

‘Give an example of a time when you showed initiative.’

Preparation is the key to managing your graduate job interview nerves – if you’ve thought in advance about the questions you might be asked, you’ll be able to approach a face-to-face meeting with your prospective employer with confidence, secure in the knowledge that you’ve done all you can to avoid ending up lost for words.

The recruiter may ask you for an example of a time when you showed initiative in order to find out whether you’re capable of coming up with new ideas and thinking creatively in order to solve problems. You can take your example from your work experience, a group project or a skills-related extra-curricular activity.

How not to reply...

"On the whole I prefer to stick to doing what I’m told rather than setting myself up to fail by doing things off my own bat. But there was this one time when I suggested to my boss at the pizza parlour that she try offering an ‘all you can eat’ deal to students to boost trade on Mondays. She thought it was an interesting idea but nothing ever came of it."

Why is this answer unlikely to get you the graduate job you want?

In your answer, you need to show not only that you’re capable of coming up with good ideas, but also that you can persuade other people to give you a chance to put them into action, and be persistent about turning inspiration into success.

What is the graduate recruiter really asking?

Do you have a bit of spark? Will you bring something new to the job, or are you a sheep who will happily follow where others lead?

How the question should be tackled...

"Takings at the pizza parlour where I worked part-time as a waitress during my studies were down, so I chatted informally to fellow students who were potential customers to get some ideas for things we could do to attract more business. I approached my boss with a couple of ideas and she agreed to invest in flyers and advertisements in the student paper. We also introduced a suggestions box for new toppings and created a new pizza every week. Within a month profits were up by 10%."

This answer highlights the candidate’s effectiveness, interpersonal skills, powers of persuasion and commercial awareness, as well as the ability to take a creative approach to problem solving.

Source: Targetjobs.co.uk, Thursday 21st April 2011

Graduate jobs to be created by Travelodge?

Approximately 550 new jobs are to be created by Travelodge, with new graduate opportunities likely to be made available.

The hotelier expects to create the vacancies through a £100 million expansion programme across 36 different sites, in partnership with British pub companies.

It intends to create the positions by 2015, as a result of its plans to pursue new development opportunities with Greene King, JW Lees, Marston's, Mitchells & Butlers and JD Wetherspoon.

The expansion plans come as a result of improved revenues from consumers eating out, despite the current economic climate.

Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "While pubs have faced tough times in recent years, this is a great example of how they are fighting back.

"Pubs are perfectly placed to provide the hospitality at sites next to hotels."

Travelodge intends to develop a 53-room hotel in Kidderminster with funding from Marstons and a 62-bed hotel alongside a JD Wetherspoon in Glossop.


Source: Gradplus.com, Tuesday 19th April 2011

Young Cubans unsure where to turn for decent jobs

Cuba's public sector layoffs could affect 1 million, and young people are most vulnerable.


In the throes of Cuba's economic "reorganisation", young people are walking a tightrope towards an uncertain employment future. They are finding it increasingly difficult to find jobs that meet both their professional aspirations and their salary expectations.

The government of President Raúl Castro launched economic reforms last year that include massive lay-offs of public employees, potentially affecting 1 million people by the end of 2011. "Young people are among the most vulnerable when it comes to getting a new job," Yonnier Angulo, 25, a university professor, told IPS.

Expanded opportunities for self-employment are among the options proposed by the government in response to the high demand for jobs. Large numbers of workers are needed in agriculture and construction, but the majority of jobseekers find these sectors unattractive.

According to the National Statistics Office, the unemployment rate in Cuba in 2009 was only 2% for women and 1.5% for men, but this will be radically changed by the decline in public sector employment.

"The impact of the labour adjustment measures on youth must be monitored," sociologist María Isabel Domínguez told IPS. Those who are clearly competent at their jobs will be kept on, but young people's competence is often hard to assess. On the one hand, they tend to be better qualified, but on the other they lack work experience, she said.

Fanny Morales, 27, a factory worker, has unhappy memories of a period of job insecurity lasting, in her case, two-and-a-half months. She was on the brink of unemployment when staff reduction measures reached her workplace, a paper factory in Mayabeque province, adjacent to Havana. Now she has been reassigned to another of her company's factories, and is greatly relieved.

"I'm glad to have a job," Morales told IPS. She is paid the minimum wage, 225 pesos (£9) a month. She hopes that when she completes her degree as an agronomist, her job prospects will improve.

Students who "are finishing university courses are extremely anxious about their employment future", said Angulo. Recent graduates are not included in the new restrictions on hiring in the public sector, so that they can gain on-the-job learning experience. To do otherwise would mean sacrificing the immediate future, President Castro said last year.

The challenge to young people in Cuba is mirrored in many parts of the world. Last year, about 6.7% of the 104 million young people of working age in Latin America and the Caribbean were unemployed, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

For some time, young people in Cuba have created their own employment niches outside the sphere of the state. Two years after finishing a degree in history at the University of Havana, Yaimelis Acosta did not have a clue about what she would do next. "I always thought I would be an academic researcher," she said.

"My expectations for the future were focused on what the university could provide," she told IPS. What she was offered at the time did not give her an opportunity to delve into her passion: research on gender relations. Now, at the age of 24, she has become a "freelance producer".

Independent film and video companies headed by newly minted professionals have sprung up, like Producciones de la 5ta Avenida, created in 2004, which is registered in Bolivia and operates in Cuba. But the government's more open vision of private employment does not yet extend to this kind of enterprise.

Official self-employment opportunities are limited to small businesses like cooking and selling food, and do not cater to the full range of interests. "Young people have many expectations that have yet to be fulfilled," Acosta said.

However, work has been low down on the list of life priorities for Cuba's young generations since the 1980s, according to Domínguez, who is head of the Centre for Psychological and Sociological Research (Cips). "It is extraordinary how immutable employment aspirations are," she said.

They have remained constant in times of bonanza like the 1980s, times of economic crisis like the 1990s, and at present, when the work ethic is making something of a comeback. "The present context is bound to shake up society's previous ideas about acceptable employment," she said.

Meanwhile, Natividad Guerrero, head of the Centre for Youth Studies (CESJ), pointed out that young people "have a very selective attitude towards employment". She said many young people who are laid off by the state prefer to look for a new job in emerging areas of the economy, like foreign companies.

"Some of them receive remittances [from abroad], which cover their monetary needs," she told IPS. But others, even though they have no steady income, "are choosy and want neither to work nor to study". They are not interested in the majority of available jobs, which nowadays are mostly in unpopular areas like construction, agriculture, or maintenance and public works, Guerrero said.

A young high school graduate who requested anonymity said he had worked at a dozen different trades, including as a security guard, pharmacy technician and printing shop worker, "getting by" for three years in a series of casual jobs.

Now he sees a chance of making more money on the black market, selling clothes, computer parts or any product he can lay his hands on, appropriated from state institutions or brought in from abroad. "I have looked at other options, but I don't want to start working at just any old job," he said.

However, this 27-year-old hasn't closed his mind to the possibility of taking a steady job, although at employment offices he has only found offers of construction work. "It's very hard work and it's poorly paid," he said. Recently, he applied to work as a dock hand at the port in Havana. "They say it's very well paid," he said.

Source: Ivet Gonzalez, Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19th April 2011

Growing numbers of students are being forced into the dole queue or low-paid jobs after leaving university, figures show.

Data from the Complete University Guide reveals a drop in students landing graduate jobs or places on more advanced postgraduate courses after finishing their degree.

At most universities, some 64 per cent of students found decent jobs or further study, compared with 68.5 per cent two years earlier.

Graduate prospects were particularly hit at many former polytechnics and new universities amid rising competition for sought-after positions during the economic downturn.

Figures show just 45 per cent of students who left Bolton University in 2009 – the latest available data – secured graduate jobs or places on further courses, such as PhDs.

It means more than half were either unemployed or found low-skilled jobs that were not linked to their degrees, such as shelf-stacking and working behind a bar.

According to figures, 53 per cent of students who left De Montfort in Leicester gained decent jobs or places on other courses, compared with 69 per cent a year earlier. Graduate prospects dropped from 71 per cent to 61 per cent at Bournemouth University, 67 per cent to 55.5 per cent at Leeds Metropolitan and 58.5 per cent to 49 per cent at London South Bank.

But other universities ensured more students found graduate jobs, often after offering courses in employability skills or better careers guidance.

This included Plymouth, Huddersfield and the University for the Creative Arts in London.

More students from Buckingham – a private university – graduated with a good job or place on another course, strengthening the Coalition’s claim that more students should consider studying with private providers.

Source: Graeme Paton, Telegraph.co.uk, Monday 18th April 2011

TUC: Latest employment statistics 'welcome relief' for job-seekers

The latest set of statistics relating to employment in the United Kingdom are a "welcome relief" for job-seekers according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary.

Brendan Barber was commenting on the figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday (April 13th), which are promising for people looking for graduate opportunities.

The figures showed that the number of people employed between December 2010 to February 2011 went up by 143,000 people. Unemployment fell by about 0.1 per cent.

Although the numbers are promising, Mr Barber warned that the statistics were not all good news, as the jobs market still is not safe.

"[Wednesday's] figures are a welcome relief for those looking for work but our labour market recovery is still far from secure," he said.

"The surprise fall in unemployment is good news for the millions of people looking for work, although the fall in the number of vacancies from last month is a worrying sign."

The TUC is the national trade union centre in the United Kingdom, which represents many unions from around the country.


Source: Gradplus.com, Friday 15th April 2011

Growing confidence at Jaguar Land Rover has resulted in more graduate jobs

Jaguar Land Rover, one of the last remaining British car manufacturers has announced that it will be creating more graduate schemes and jobs ahead of record sales in the UK, India and China.

They will be recruiting up to 1,000 engineering jobs in the West Midlands in the next two years and also about 1,500 apprenticeships in Halewood. As well as these, Nicola Rzeznik, a spokeswoman for the firm also said they would be hiring a ‘significant number’ of other people in other departments which include finance and purchasing.

Jaguar Land Rover will aim to recruit for the new roles in sites already situated in the West Midlands after the Unite union has stated that it managed to negotiate with the company about the investment in more jobs there.

Des Quinn, regional industrial organiser for Unite said: "We weren't allowing them to take jobs out of the West Midlands so we're glad they've come round to our way of thinking."

Global brand director John Edwards said that the latest sales results show the growing confidence in the market place and the ‘positive response to the latest product offerings’.  He also comments that, "Nowhere is this more evident than in the UK where we have once again broken an incredible sales record."

Source: Pareto.co.uk, Saturday 16th April 2011

Cameron accused over jobless youth

The Government is facing growing calls to tackle youth unemployment, which has reached a record high of almost a million, amid warnings that the UK's jobs recovery has gone into reverse.

The Prime Minister has been accused of "betraying" a generation of youngsters after latest figures showed that the youth unemployment rate was now 20.5%, following a 66,000 increase to 965,000 in the last quarter of 2010, the highest figures since records began in 1992.

The Prince's Trust said there were enough unemployed young people to fill every football stadium in the Premier League, with almost 200,000 left queuing outside.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance increased by 2,400 in January to 1.46 million, with female claimants rising for the seventh month in a row to reach almost 450,000, the highest figure since 1996.

Meanwhile, more than a million people are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs, the highest total since records began in 1992.

At Prime Minister's question time in the Commons, Labour leader Ed Miliband accused David Cameron of "betraying a whole generation of young people" by scrapping the previous administration's Future Jobs Fund and allowing youth unemployment to rise.

The Prime Minister said the latest figures were a "matter of great regret" but stressed that youth unemployment had been a long-term problem, and that the Government was taking action to improve education and back-to-work schemes.

"Of course today's unemployment figures are a matter of great regret, and it's a great regret particularly in terms of higher youth unemployment. Youth unemployment has been a problem in this country for well over a decade, in good years and in bad."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Young people were hit hardest by the recession and today's figures show they are suffering in our so-called recovery too. Government action so far - trebling tuition fees, scrapping the Education Maintenance Allowance and vital job support - has only made things worse for young people."

David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "It is particularly worrying that the number of people who are working part-time because they could not find a full-time job, and the number of young unemployed, both rose to the highest level since records began. The figures confirm that the economy is facing serious challenges over the months ahead, and we believe that UK unemployment will rise by a further 100,000 over the next year to around 2.6 million."

Source: London Evening Standard, 17th February 2011, echoed again in the news on 13th April 2011.

Graduates earn £12,000 a year more than non-graduates

Graduates were paid £12,000 a year more, on average, than workers without degrees over the past decade, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) last week.

The ONS found that earnings were similar for graduates and non-graduates at the age of 22, but graduate salaries increased faster and peaked later in life. The median salary for a non-degree holder aged between 22 and 64 was £18,000, whereas for a graduate it was £30,000.

Over the last decade, a male graduate could expect to earn on average 20% more than a female graduate. This gap was slightly wider for non-degree holders, at 23%.

However, as the consumer rights organisation Which? pointed out in a news item on its website, the ONS figures did not take the rising costs of higher education into account. A BBC survey found last week suggested that many more students at English universities will be paying the maximum annual tuition fees of £9,000 than was originally expected, with almost half of the universities that responded planning to charge the maximum fee level.

Source: TARGETjobs, news editor, 12th April 2011 

We can't get no education

In the education jungle, the season of acceptance and rejection for state-school admissions this year has passed, leaving us pale and trembling at every buff envelope to hit the doormat.

Now we're in the anxious month of last-chance appeals and the manic scramble for alternatives. "I'm sure they'll be fine whatever happens," we lie sweetly to our co-sufferers, before heading home to bash out another protest letter and measuring catchment zones with a pedometer.

I bumped into the mother of one of my children's friends from state school clutching a sheaf of appeal papers, with a desperate glint in her eye. She has one child the couple can just about afford to educate privately but needs a state school place for the second. It's either that or up sticks from London, where she looks after her elderly mother.

It makes her one of a growing number of parents fighting the allocation system for a place in a decent state school. London parents account for a sizeable share in the last-hope appeals: nationally, 88,000 parents appealed last year; more are expected to do so this year. A burgeoning industry has been set up to guide parents through the appeals system, with solicitors charging up to £2,000 to handle the process.

Everyone knows the chance of success is slight. A vast well of demand outstrips a tiny trickle of supply: the state school system doesn't work for many middle-class parents in the capital - and an awful lot of fudge goes into covering that up.

No wonder that here in Islington many of us still shake our heads at the tale of localMP Jeremy Corbyn. Here is a chap whose 11-year-old a few years ago achieved the holy grail of education in the borough: getting out of it and not having to pay for the pleasure.

His bright son Ben was offered a hotly coveted place at the Queen Elizabeth School in Barnet, a selective grammar. The school is a beautiful old building in stunning grounds. It is as academically brilliant as Westminster school, just not as full of the offspring of London's top smug people. Did Mr Corbyn jump for joy and kiss the postman?

He did not. Being a firm believer in comprehensive education and possessing, unlike the rest of us, unbending principles in the matter, he refused to condone the boy going there. His missus promptly left him - and sent the child off to leafy Barnet.

I sympathise with the Corbyns' dilemma. How to educate your children (assuming you are lucky enough to have any financial choice in the matter), involves a mix of private principles, middle-class guilt about getting ahead on the opportunity ladder, combined with a firm desire to do exactly that when push comes to shove. It's hardly ever said, but it does divide parents: even ones not so red in tooth and claw as Mr Corbyn.

A lot of parents feel the tension of the choice. I know one woman whose daughter got a scholarship at a private school - and whose extended family are so cross about her going that they won't talk about it. On the other side of the divide, I rather admire the Conservative columnist Andrew Gimson, who agreed to have his daughter go to state school in London because his wife Sally - a Labour candidate - felt so strongly about it.

Often though, the private option wins out because it's too much upheaval to move house and face the silent reproach in future decades that the children might be doing much better had we emptied the rainy-day accounts and avoided the bog-standard "satisfactory" school.

But we are also prone to impossibly high standards and a bit of herd-like behaviour. The designer Stella McCartney - herself state-educated because, she once commented, her famous dad was "tight" with dosh, intends to do something very different with their own children.

Her husband Alasdhair Willis, another product of the state system, says they are not sending their kids to a state school because there aren't any good ones in W11 where they live. I can't see why this is true. The Fox School in Kensington, with a big intake from the area, is garlanded by Ofsted as an "outstanding school... with exceptional qualities, marked by its high standards".

It also has a hugely mixed social intake and lots of children without English as a first language. I've no idea what is driving Stella and Alasdhair's choice but however good a school's results on paper, parents will often fret about variety in a school - where what matters is the structure and discipline to make it work.

The new generation of Tories are in a bind: so many are privately educated and their social set still errs on the side of sending Noah and Dido private. Not so easy if you're trying to avoid the charge of being a posh boy who doesn't understand the "squeezed middle".

The favoured primary solution is Kensington's St Mary Abbots, where David andSamantha Cameron have sent their children. I guess, if we are being nosey, the Camerons don't live in the catchment area since moving to Downing Street, but they did when they applied.

The Goves also send their offspring there (very strict about homework, I hear) and the parental profile is as boho-posh as you can get in the state sector. The school gates throng with the children of film-makers, architects, journalists who are prepared to live in shoe boxes and worship on Sundays to qualify for a place.

The Camerons even attended a quiz night, shortly after the birth of their fourth child, to show that they're fully part of state school life: it was recently revealed that Dave is looking for an academy for his oldest child.

That's where the going gets tough. When a couple of children with posh first names drifted out of our state primary in year three, we held our nerve. But by the time it is years five and six and you've studied the criteria for the best academies and realised your children are the wrong faith, wrong academic band (more places available for the least able) or your garden gate is the wrong side of the cut-off, panic sets in and you start to squirrel St Cake's brochures underneath the sofa.

There is an alternative view: which is that it doesn't matter if the school isn't that good. A colleague told me the other day he took this view, not least because he and his siblings had succeeded despite some rubbish teachers and learned more at the kitchen table than they had at school.

I did point out this was unlikely to happen to our children, because like a lot of London professionals we work ridiculously hard and only arrive in the kitchen when they've dashed off their homework and we're too zonked to understand a verbal reasoning test.

True, you could rely on the new social mobility initiatives, which will mean clever children from state schools will have a better crack at the good universities and might well do better in the Oxbridge race than their well-spoken friends who went to the pricey day school. Still, it's a scary risk to take, because academic basics do matter.

That's why we stumble through the great middle-class education war zone in fear and hope - and wonder if the little blighters might one day show the slightest sign of appreciating what we went through for them.

Source: Anne McElvoy, London Evening Standard - 11th April 2011

Employability: the new student buzzword at universities

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, bluntly told universities this week that the "biggest mistake" they could make in the new fees-based market would be to "under-estimate" their consumers.

Of course, Mr Cable's aim was to try to stop the rush of universities charging fees at the maximum level. But there are growing signs that prospective students are not just concerned about costs - they are just as interested in the return on their investment.

For many that will be measured in terms of improved career and salary prospects. This week the Office for National Statistics revealed that graduates earned £12,000 a year more than non-graduates over the past decade.

But that was an average figure, and job and salary prospects vary widely according to the university and the course chosen.

So, before paying up to £9,000 a year, many prospective students want to know what their particular university course will do for them.

Universities are getting the message. Nearly all now offer award schemes designed to boost, and formally recognise, "employability skills".

Self-discovery

And the pressure is about to get more intense. Proposals from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) mean that, from autumn 2012, universities will have to provide course-by-course consumer data covering the job destinations and salaries of their recent graduates.

But is there a danger that a university education will become a utilitarian job-training scheme rather than an intellectual voyage of self-discovery? Is the fun and edginess being squeezed out of university life?

The new challenge to universities comes in the form of a mild sounding acronym: KIS, which stands for Key Information Set.

The proposal is that 16 sets of standardised information should be published on university websites, allowing easy course-by-course comparison. In effect it would be an official, Which?-style consumers' guide to universities.

The proposal is based on research by Hefce which found that prospective and current students rated employability-related benchmarks as particularly useful.

So, four of the 16 bits of information in the KIS will relate to job prospects, covering: the destinations of students six months after graduation, the proportion achieving a full-time "graduate" job, the average salary earned, and whether the courses are recognised by professional bodies.

Other information sets will cover quality and amount of teaching and facilities, study costs and bursaries, and assessment methods.

So is employability really such a key factor for prospective students when they are choosing where to study?

Recession

A report from the 1994 Group of universities found that 80% of students said future employability and salaries were a factor in deciding which university to apply to. This rose to 89% when students were deciding which particular course to take.

Until now, the signs have been that most graduates have indeed boosted their employability by gaining a degree. The 1994 group found that 80% of graduates were in graduate-level jobs within three and a half years of leaving university.

But that figure covers those who graduated before the recent recession. Current prospects may not be so good.

As Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 Group, told a conference last week: "We have to blend the student experience with developing the skills they will need for work".With fees set to rise, and graduate vacancies still thin on the ground, universities believe they must focus more on boosting employability skills.

That is why growing numbers of universities are now formalising what Marshall describes as "the co-curricular offer".

The University of Surrey is a pioneer at this. It runs a Global Graduate Award scheme, which provides free foreign language lessons to undergraduates, whatever their course, to boost their international employability.

And 80% of undergraduates at Surrey also take part in the university's Professional Training Year, which provides business and industry placements in the UK and abroad. Surrey also employs an "entrepreneur-in-residence", to encourage students to run their own businesses.

Employment machine

But is it a university's role to churn out oven-ready employees? Professor Christopher Snowdon, Surrey's vice-chancellor and chief executive, insists the university should not "flip over into becoming an employment machine" but says it does have a role "to develop the skills and education to meet tomorrow's challenges for a skilled workforce".

In a survey of graduate employment rates conducted by the Higher Education Statistics Agency last summer, Surrey came top with 96.9% of graduates in work or further study after six months of graduation.

But what do employers want? Would they rather students studied hard and gained a good degree or spent time on gaining employability skills such as team working, communication and problem solving?

Julie Mercer, head of education at Deloitte LLP, which recruits over 1,000 graduates a year, told a recent university conference that while it initially screens for candidates with at least 320 Ucas points and a 2:1, it then looks for graduates with "all those softer skills" of employability.

Donna Miller, European HR director for Enterprise Rent-a-Car, leans even further towards employability skills over academic qualifications.

She told the same conference that "fewer employers are now relying on the 2:1 as a cut-off" when choosing graduates, adding that focusing so strongly on academic grades was "rather archaic".

"Being well-rounded is what's really important. Someone who has only seen the inside of the library for three years is not going to be top of anyone's candidates' list".

So, it is a tough outlook for students - not only will they have to pay more to study, they will also have to spend more of their campus time developing employability skills and undertaking work placements if they want to get a return on their "investment".

Source: BBC News Website, Mike Baker is a freelance education journalist and broadcaster.