Over Half of Jobs to Require Graduates By 2017

Recent research into the changing face of the UK jobs market by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has revealed that over half of all jobs will be for require graduate level by 2017.

The UK is expected to see an acceleration of the shift towards higher-level occupations over the next few years. By 2017, 56% more jobs will require people to hold graduate-level qualifications, while demand for people with no qualifications will fall by 12%.

The growing demand for graduates will undoubtedly see an increase in graduate job vacancies in many industries, including engineering graduate jobs and marketing graduate jobs to name just a few.

“The boom years before the recession masked the extent of deep-rooted problems in parts of the labour market, including long-term unemployment and an unhealthy dependency on the public sector,” commented John Cridland, CBI Director-General.

“These problems will not disappear with the economic recovery and left unchecked will have grave social and economic consequences. Only private sector growth can create the jobs we need and we must ensure the fruits of recovery are felt in every region.”

The CBI research also shows some interesting figures about where future jobs for graduates are likely to be located. The traditional North-South divide looks likely to continue to grow in the coming years, with highly-skilled jobs expected to be most in demand in London and the South East, compared with the North East and West Midlands.As the economic recovery stumbles along, it looks like SMEs are leading the way in offering graduate jobs. The recent Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, which asks over 2,000 employers for their hiring plans over the coming quarter, has revealed that smaller firms expect to create eight per cent more jobs in the third quarter.

"SMEs were among the first to shed jobs during the recession, but we're now seeing them build their workforce again and becoming an increasingly important source of job creation in the UK," commented Mark Cahill, the UK managing director of Manpower.

Source: Gradplus.com, Friday 24th June 2011