According to recent research, three out of four small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) believe that degrees are worth less now than they were 10 years ago. <\/p>\n
They are therefore more likely to hire someone with experience than someone whose knowledge is academic, meaning that graduates are going to have to work that much harder to get their first job.<\/p>\n
SMEs, meaning firms with 250 or fewer staff, employ almost 60 per cent of the workforce in the private sector, so their attitude to hiring young people is important to government strategy.<\/p>\n
As a spokesman for the research company pointed out, it has been an employer\u2019s market since the economic downturn and they have been able to pick and choose people with the skills they need, usually of necessity, as, in a small firm, one person can make a big difference.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, he added, this onus on skills has been on \u2018hard\u2019 skills, which is why the value of a degree is falling, particularly if the degree is in the \u2018soft\u2019 skills sector. However, as the economy picks up, the focus may change again, allowing soft skills to gain more recognition.<\/p>\n
The research also found that employers are more likely to recruit apprentices rather than graduates, with just over 50 per cent saying they would prefer to take on someone who wants to learn the actual job as well as the theory surrounding it when filling entry-level positions.<\/p>\n
This preference for apprentices is likely to increase, as the SMEs surveyed said that they would be hiring 20 per cent more apprentices in five years\u2019 time, compared with only a 7 per cent increase in graduate recruitment.<\/p>\n
The research also looked at youth unemployment and the experiences of SMEs in hiring 16 to 24-year-olds and found that of the 21 per cent who had taken on a jobless young person, 56 per cent said it had not worked out well, with 38 per cent saying their recruit did not have the right skills, 35 per cent saying they did not have the right attitude and 26 per cent feeling frustrated because they had not lasted long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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