Shock, Horror ! The pay of graduates has fallen over recent years and by as much as 11% between 2007 and 2012. Is it really any wonder ?
Some academic has discovered that the salaries paid for newly recruited graduates in professional posts have fallen continuously since 2005 with the rate of decline accelerating since 2007. That this has come as a surprise is, perhaps, more surprising than the fall itself. The world has been in something of a financial mess for the last 6 or 7 years and budgets have been squeezed; it is not only graduates who have felt the pinch. However, in their case, they have been subject to another pressure, that is, the inexorable rise in graduate numbers from an increased number of universities. As any economist ought to know, price is related to supply and when the supply goes up, the price goes down.
Sending hundreds of thousands of our teenagers off to university never was a good idea and this is just one of the consequences. Leaving aside all of those whose degrees from fourth-rate institutions are unlikely ever to be of any value, there must be many others who are now competing for jobs which previously attracted no more than a handful of candidates; 'head-hunting' for the very best has not changed and they will still demand a premium, but the rest are now in a fight. Employers can hardly be blamed for taking advantage of this, nor for taking a cautious approach when appointing someone from a less than prestigious establishment.
Yet another glorious Socialist ideal gone haywire.
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