The number of graduates still unemployed more than a year after leaving university has surged by 8,000 amid a youth jobs crisis.
A poll of 2023 university leavers by Prospects at Jisc, a graduate careers website, found that 6.2pc of graduates – or 56,900 – were still out of work 15 months after ending their studies. That was up from 5.6pc or 48,700 in the previous year.
The rise highlights how graduates are struggling to find entry level roles amid a hiring slowdown across the workforce.
Young people were badly hit by a hiring freeze after Rachel Reeves increased employers’ National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage in last year’s Budget.
Charlie Ball, from Jisc, said: “A lot of graduate recruiting businesses found their recruitment budgets burned through fairly early in the financial year.
“It just got a lot harder and more difficult to recruit in late 2024 and 2025. Everyone felt the force of it and graduates were no exception.”
He added that the rise in the unemployment rate for university graduates “is starting to look like the early stages of a genuine downturn”.
Mr Ball said that during a recession, the unemployment rate for university leavers would likely be between 7pc and 8pc.
The poll results come amid fears of a youth worklessness crisis as figures released last week showed 946,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training at the end of September.
