Postgraduates and the recession

05 August 2009

By Web Admin

By Dr Charlie Ball, HECSU Deputy Director of Research

A few weeks ago, on the HECSU blog, I did some calculations looking at the parallels between the last recession and the current one, and using the data collected on employment at the time, to try to work out how unemployment for first degree graduates might look over the next few years. It was a series of estimates based on old data in a situation which has similarities, but is not the same as, the current economic climate, but it generated some interest. The post is here for those who are interested: http://hecsu.blogspot.com/2009/05/summer-of.html.

As part of Vitae's series on the impact of the recession on researcher careers, I thought I would turn my attention to data for postgraduates, and see if we can model the possible impact of this downturn on the employment of new PhD graduates.

This time, data's a bit difficult to interpret, as the historic figures I have, from old HESA First Destination Survey data, don't differentiate between different forms of postgraduate qualification. That's a bit frustrating as firstly, PGCE, Masters and PhD outcomes are all rather different, and secondly because the balance between the qualification numbers differs from the proportions back in the early 90s - in particular, there's been a big rise in Masters qualifications awarded.

With those caveats out of the way, let's see what happened to postgraduate unemployment in the last recession.

The recession started in 1990, but unemployment only started to really rise for postgraduates the year after (it had already risen for undergraduates). This time around, the recession officially began in 2008, although it had become obvious by the time we technically entered recession that there were serious issues in the economy.

If this pattern continues, we'd expect to see unemployment rates for postgraduates from 2007/8 to be about 4 per cent - which is what has happened (they were below 3 per cent in 2006/7), and for them to then go up sharply to well over 5 per cent next year, and possibly to 6 per cent. That means that this year could well be the worst year on record for the employment prospects of UK PhD graduates. And unemployment could remain relatively high (compared to the normal level for PhDs) for the next 5 years or so.

I'd also expect a jump in unemployment levels for PhD graduates around 2012/13, 4 years hence, as happened last time, as those people who fled the recession for PhD study this year graduate and find the job market not fully recovered.

What this reflects is two key issues. Firstly, previous recessions have shown us that graduate unemployment tends to lag behind the economy, and that postgraduate unemployment is no exception. But, in addition, it takes years after recovery has begun for employment to generally get back to normal.

In numerical terms, we're looking at between 250 and 300 unemployed PhD graduates (taken six months after graduating) every year until the middle of the next decade, with the physical sciences making up many of the unemployed. Normally, we have a little over 100 in a given year.

However, there are factors that may mitigate the pain for PhDs. Firstly, the UK employment market is different to the market in the early 90s. We have moved to a higher skills economy. It may be that demand for PhDs will hold up better than for those with lower skills - after all, we are talking about the most highly educated cohort of people in the country, and one constant is true in bad economic times - the better qualified you are, the better your prospects are.

The other is that there are whole areas of support for PhDs that did not exist last time we had a recession. You're reading this courtesy of one of the key initiatives. PhD graduates are better equipped to find work than ever before thanks to training in key skills, and in how best to articulate those skills in the language that employers understand. This may well help some of those who might have struggled in the jobs market 15 years ago to succeed now.

It may be that for some people with doctorates, they will have to opt for a job that does not immediately need their PhD. But they'll still have their PhD, and nobody's going to take it away from them. Later in their career, they may find - it's likely, in fact - that the doctorate is working for them after all, as they leave their less qualified colleagues behind courtesy of the extra disciplines, skills and knowledge they obtained.

What does this mean for those of us involved in supporting and informing PhD graduates and researchers?

Well, firstly, we need to make sure we are both supporting and informing as effectively as possible. We need to stress that there are jobs available, and that while the job market is more competitive than ever before, the fight can still be won. The large majority of PhD graduates will get jobs - good jobs at that. They may need to look harder, or in places they didn't expect, but a PhD is all about solving problems and finding answers. Don't believe those who say there's nothing out there, or that things are hopeless - or the ones who say you should be able to walk into a job with a PhD.

We need to make sure we communicate effectively with one another as a community, and with the students and researchers we are here to support.

We need to stress to students - and their supervisors - that skills training is important, and that it is useful and that it will help them. We all know that universities are seeing their finances squeezed, and that the next few years are likely to see cuts in public spending.

That means that the already-competitive market for jobs in academia is not likely to get easier (although there is the issue of the demographics of current academics, of course).

So students who aspire to academic careers need to plan in case it doesn't happen for them - as it often doesn't for talented PhD graduates for a variety of reasons.

And we need to be realistic. That squeeze on finances is going to affect many of us as well. It's not hard to see that more people needing our support and, at a likely best, no extra resources to do it with, means that we're going to be stretched.

But above all, we need to bear one thing in mind. We're in a recession, yes. But it won't last forever.

By Dr Charlie Ball

Vitae would like to thank the author for contributing this article. Vitae would like to remind readers that the information and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Vitae or CRAC: The career development organisation.

This article has been published as part of Vitae's Researcher careers and recession online activity in July 2009.  To view other articles on this theme please visit www.vitae.ac.uk/careersandrecession