LONDON (AP) – The dream of British fashion school Phoebe St. Army dreaming of landing a job at a design label is on hold. Like many others in the Global Class of 2020, the pandemic is shattering its career ambitions.
The coronavirus forced the cancellation of her fashion graduate class from the university graduate class, and removed the opportunity to show off her collection of knitwear to people in the sector, some of whom might have enjoyed her work around her. to offer a job.
Instead, St. Army, 22, returned to her family home in Winchester, southern England, and submitted her classwork online. She has applied for about 40 jobs and received rejections alone.
“All jobs are all dedicated – everywhere,” she said. She knows graduates from previous years who have been fired or furloughed and is ready to get a job at a bar. “It’s still hard to hope when you do not currently see anyone doing it right.”
All over the world, young people armed with new degrees, diplomas and professional qualifications are struggling to enter the labor party as the pandemic pushes the world economy into recession. COVID-19 has given up hope of landing first jobs – important for jump-start careers – as employers cut back on graduate recruitment plans or even take on job offers.
The latest U.S. job numbers Friday underscored the dire outlook: 1.8 million jobs were added in July, a sharp drop in employment growth from the month before. It means that the world’s largest economy has lost just 42% of its jobs due to the coronavirus.
American career website Glassdoor says the number of jobs advertised as “entry level” or “new grad” in May was 68% from a year ago. In the UK, companies plan to reduce student recruitment by 23% this year, according to a survey of 179 companies by the Institute of Student Employers.
The wave of delayed employment will ripple through the economy, says Brian Kropp, head of HR research at consulting firm Gartner.
Many degrees will have debts on student loans that they cannot start paying until they find a job, he said.
“If you can not get a job at the entry level today, it means that you will not move out of the parental home, you will not develop a real work experience, you will only buy your first home until later, and you will not be married until later. . ‘
Michael Welch, 22, tracked down LinkedIn, Monster and Indeed for postings and connections after earning a University of Connecticut engineering degree. He did not intend to begin his search until after his graduation.
“That plan was disrupted because I was planning to enter a good job market,” he said. “Suddenly I was in one of the worst job markets in recent history.”
Welch, who has moved home with his parents, worries about online interviews and starting a job remotely.
“Remote jobs are great for someone who does not have to commute and already has a job,” he said. But “for someone entering the job market, it’s a terrible prospect. It is difficult to learn technical skills when you are at a distance. “
Noah Isaak, a 2019 graduate and newly certified teacher, has applied for jobs in the Chicago public school system and has done a few interviews, but they have led nowhere. Most people he knows from his program also have problems.
Now he is considering applying for minimum wage jobs at Target, Costco, cafes and Amazon.
“I’m stressed,” said Isaac, 23. “Nothing is really going the way we expected it to go. It is comforting that it is not a personal mistake and that other people are going through the same struggle. But it’s hard not to know. ”
One major long-term effect for young graduates who take longer to find good first jobs is lower wages over the course of their careers, experts said.
Someone who takes a year or more to find their first job is behind their peers when it comes to promotions and also competes with younger people who come to the job market later.
The problem is, like the pandemic, worldwide.
Vacancies for graduates for July are from the previous year in 10 countries, according to Adzuna, a search engine for vacancies. Britain, India and the Netherlands have seen the biggest declines, with postings falling by more than half from a year ago, but other countries including Austria, Australia, Brazil, and France are also seeing double-digit percentage drinks.
Graduate jobs are expected to shrink in 21 countries, with most likely not recoverable next year, according to a separate report from the ISE of Britain.
Maria Jose Casco, a newly qualified doctor, has not found a job after graduating from Ecuador in April. Casco, 24, said she has been looking for health-related jobs as well as jobs in other sectors.
Even though the pandemic means more need for health care, she found that employers are not committed to full-time jobs.
“They are looking for temporary staff that they can easily fire,” Casco said. She and her husband live off savings and his salary of $ 480 a month and consider, like others, emigrating. “Because there is no future, many of my colleagues are looking for the opportunity to leave Ecuador.”
The pandemic exacerbates problems for young people in countries affected by chronic economic instability.
Two years after graduating from Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, 24-year-old Emmanuel Reyai is nowhere near his goal of getting a job related to his degree in local government. His search is fueled by both the economic invasion of the African country and by the outbreak of the coronavirus.
“I have applied more than 40 times – nothing,” he said, picking up a plastic folder with his academic certificates.
More than two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s population, including university degrees, pass through informal trade, such as the street. Reyai first sold cooking gas from a shed in his impoverished Harare neighborhood, but the local council destroyed it after the outbreak. Now he makes and sells peanut butter around town.
“There is no hope of getting a job,” Reyai said. “I have tried everything to apply for a job, but the situation is not getting better. It actually gets worse. ”
In Indonesia, Clara Karina, 25, graduated in January with a degree in accounting from a well-known business and finance school in Jakarta.
She wanted to work as a civil servant, but applied for jobs at private companies because the government froze recruitment. Only three out of 20 companies responded to their applications. Two turned her down and the third is underway.
“Companies are not recruiting new employees, they are now reducing employees,” Karina said. “I have to be more patient.”
For some, there are happy ducks.
In China, 23-year-old Li Xin graduated this summer with a degree in statistics, but had started looking for a job in January – just when the pandemic forced many companies to suspend operations. She apparently opposed scams from companies hiring for finance and IT jobs that wanted hefty ‘training costs’.
Some classmates found banking tasks through their connections. Others without ties end up in industries that are not related to their degrees. Several do tutoring jobs, and Li found one himself but only lasted a week.
She felt hopeless, but also realized that everyone was having a hard time.
“I was sitting in the subway, watching people come and go around me, and I would suddenly feel like it was easy for no one,” Li said.
Li finally landed a data analytics job at her home in Beijing, which began this month. However, more than half of their class still need to find jobs.
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Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, Mae Anderson in New York, Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia and Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe have all contributed to this story.
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Follow Kelvin Chan at t witter.com/chanman
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