Door slammed ON RECENT GRADS
Pandemic wrecks global Class of 2020’s hopes for first job
LONDON — British fashion school graduate Phoebe St. Leger’s dream of landing a job at a design label is on hold. Like many others in the global Class of 2020, the pandemic is clouding her career ambitions.
The coronavirus forced the cancellation of her university graduating class’s final-year fashion show, removing the chance to show her knitwear collection to people in the industry, some of whom might have liked her work enough to offer her a job.
Instead, St. Leger, 23, returned to her family home in Winchester, southern England, and submitted her classwork online. She has applied for about 40 jobs and received only rejections.
“All the jobs have all dried up — everywhere,” she said. She knows graduates from previous years who have been fired or furloughed and is prepared to get a job at a bar. “It’s still hard to be hopeful when you’re not seeing anyone doing well at the moment.”
Around the world, young people armed with new degrees, diplomas and professional qualifications are struggling to enter the workforce as the pandemic pushes the global economy into recession. COVID-19 has thwarted hopes of landing first jobs — important for jumpstarting careers — as employers cut back graduate recruiting plans or even revoke job offers.
The latest U.S. job numbers Friday underscored the murky outlook: 1.8 million jobs were added in July, a sharp slowdown in employment growth from the month before. It means the world’s biggest economy has regained just 42% of jobs lost to the coronavirus.
U.S. careers website Glassdoor says the number of jobs advertised as “entry level” or “new grad” was down 68% in May from a year ago. In Britain, companies plan to cut student recruitment by 23% this year, according to a survey of 179 businesses by the Institute of Student Employers.
The wave of delayed employment will ripple out through the economy, says Brian Kropp, chief of HR research at con
sultancy Gartner.
Many grads will have student loan debts they won’t be able to start paying off until they find a job, he said.
“If you can’t get an entry level job today, that means that you don’t move out of your parent’s house, you don’t develop real work experience, you don’t buy your first home until later, and you don’t get married until later,” Kropp said.
Michael Welch, 22, has been scouring LinkedIn, Monster and Indeed for postings and connections after earning a University of Connecticut engineering degree. He hadn’t planned to start his job search until after graduation.
“That plan was disrupted because I was planning to go into a good job market,” he said. “Suddenly I was in one of the worst job markets in recent history.”
Welch, who moved back home with his parents, worries about online interviews and starting a job remotely.
“Remote jobs are great for someone who doesn’t have to commute and already has a job,” he said. But “for someone entering the job market it is a scary prospect. It’s difficult to learn technical skills when you’re in a remote setting.”