Graduate salaries are rising

The average advertised salary for graduates in the UK rose 7% on the year, to £26,076 last month, according to Adzuna, the job advertising website. Job vacancies for graduates rose by 59% over the same period, to 14,690 in May.

Companies are opening new positions and increasing the advertised salaries in an attempt to replenish their workforces with young workers straight out of university. The data shows that the legal and banking sectors are offering the highest starting rates, with US employers leading the way. JPMorgan Chase had a base salary of up to £70,000, with Barclays is offering £50,000. In the retail sector, Lidl’s supply chain graduate programme has a starting salary of £37,000. Aldi offers £44,000.

The Rise of the Machines ...

 [ Source: i newspaper ]

Degree class related to future earnings

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has used DfE data to analyse the financial benefit, in terms of the earnings premium at age 30, of students gaining different degree classifications. After allowing for the characteristics of different students, such as prior attainment at school, they found that women with a 1st could expect to earn 4% more than those with a 2:1, while the premium for men was 7%. The "penalty" for getting 2:2 as opposed to a 2:1 was reduced earnings of 7% at age 30 for women and 11% for men. However, the IFS study also found variations in the benefits and penalties of different degree classes according to which subject was studied and the type of university that was attended. For instance, both men and women who left university with a 2:2 from the most selective universities earned a fifth less on average by the age of 30 than those who got a 2:1, a gap that was much lower (6% for women and 8% for men) for graduates of the least selective institutions. The study says “degree class premiums are in many cases bigger than differences in returns between university types. The results suggest that those who get a 2:2 from a selective university would mostly have been better off with a 2:1 from a less selective one.”

Young returners to work are in insecure employment

A report by the Resolution Foundation has found that young people had returned to work rapidly in late 2021, with unemployment now slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels, but a third of the 18-34 year-olds back in the workplace were now in "insecure work". The young "returners", those who were employed pre-Covid but became unemployed in the pandemic, were now much more likely than those who stayed in work to be on a temporary or zero-hours contract, or doing agency work or unsteady hours. 33% of the returners, among 6,100 people surveyed by YouGov, were now in such roles, compared with 12% of those who had stayed in work throughout the pandemic.

The Gender Pay Gap is widening

The "gender pay gap" reported to the government by Britain’s biggest firms is widening, prompting warnings that women face a bleak and worsening economic picture in 2022. Three years after a new law compelled companies to reveal the difference between male and female wages, data shows that 8:10 organisations with more than 250 staff still pay men more than women. The most recent data shows women are being paid a median hourly rate 10.2% less than their male colleagues, nearly a percentage point higher than the 9.3% gap reported in 2018. The pay gap in the private sector grew from 8% in 2018 to 9% in 2021, while, in the public sector, it grew from 14.4% to 15.5%.