IT graduate vacancies have fallen by 14% compared with last year
and it is expected that thousands of IT graduates will be unable to
find related work this year.
A report, Graduate Recruitment Trends Survey 2002/3, by careers
publisher GTI, shows a 14% fall in the number of vacancies on offer
in the past 12 months. The downturn follows two years in which the
number of vacancies for IT graduates increased despite the overall
downturn in market.
"If students were making career choices three years ago there is no
way they could have predicted such a downturn," said John Eary,
head of the skills source consultancy at the National Computing
Centre.
"When IT first started booming students weren't showing much
interest in studying computer science, but now there are more
students there is less work available."
Chris Phillips, publisher of the report, said: "This is a betrayed
generation. They embarked on computer science courses as it was
said it would guarantee them a job."
The number of applications for each IT graduate vacancy has risen
from 17 in 2001 to 22 this year. Even more frustrating for computer
science graduates is the tendency of employers to fill IT posts
with non-specialists who are then trained to do the job.
"It has been the case for some time that large numbers of IT
professionals do not have an IT degree and large numbers of
computer science graduates end up working in completely unrelated
jobs," said Eary.
"This just shows that universities are not producing what employers
want, although efforts are now being made to realign skills."
For those fortunate enough to secure their first job in IT there is
some good news. Starting salaries have increased despite the
downturn, from an average of £22,716 in 2001 to £24,764 in
2002.
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