Job market will be "difficult" for graduates

15:00 18th June 2009

Students graduating this year are going to find the job market an "exceptionally difficult" arena, according to an expert.

Tom Usher, research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, said "The numbers of graduates are ever increasing and traditional graduate employers are freezing graduate recruitment or at least reducing it quite significantly."

Due to this, graduates may find it hard to get a job that meets their expectations.

Gaining qualifications in IT training may help students stand out from the crowd.

Education and the public sector are two areas that Mr Usher said employment is still growing.

Mr Usher's comments follow news from McDonald's that it is currently receiving 2,200 applications for crew positions and is hiring up to 140 people a day.

In addition, the fast-food chain said 305 applications for trainee managers were received last month from backgrounds as diverse as education, retail, hospitality and finance and banking.