Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, competition for graduate jobs has reached an all-time high – with graduate job openings declining by 77% since January, leaving newly-graduated students to face the most difficult labour market the UK has witnessed in the past 75 years.
30% of today’s students have reported losing a job or a job offer due to the COVID unemployment rate, a grim reality accentuated by the 20% of major employers who have decided to suspend their graduate schemes during the lockdown and halted offers of graduate jobs for the foreseeable future.
Helping Generation COVID
Last month, the charity upReach established the ‘Assessed Virtual Internship’, a programme which lends a helping hand to graduates whose prospective careers have dissipated. These four-week programmes are delivered by volunteers and have offered a chance to apply over 1,000 young people.
A coalition of British youth charities has also pushed to build a national youth corps, guaranteeing jobs for the UK’s upcoming professionals during this troubling time, in an open letter to the government.
