Graduates warned of fall in starting salaries

Graduates will have to put much more effort into securing a career and will increasingly be forced to take jobs for which they are over-qualified. Employers will place greater emphasis on work experience when selecting university leavers, writes Barrie Clement.

A study published today by the Institute of Management Studies predicts that Britain will follow trends in the US, where degree holders' starting salaries have declined by 16 per cent in real terms between 1969 and 1990, and a fifth of them are in jobs which do not require a university education. By 2005, the report says, about 30 per cent of US graduates will be 'under-utilised'.

The Institute was asked to conduct the research because the United States embarked on a massive expansion of higher education in the 1960s, 30 years before a similar policy was adopted in Britain. The numbers graduating from the UK higher education system have doubled in the last five years.

The US labour market for new graduates; Institute of Manpower Studies; available from BEBC Ltd, PO Box 1496, Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, BH12 3YD.