This month we have learnt that almost a million young people are out of work, after the biggest quarterly increase in unemployment since Labour came to power. In a clear sign of Labour’s failure of young people, 17.3% of people aged 18-24 in the UK are now out of work or full-time education.

These shocking new figures came to light in the same week that we discovered over 1 million people are being forced to work part-time as a result of the recession. ONS figures show an extra 250,000 people, who want to work full-time, have been forced to settle for part-time work in the last year, masking the true scale of under-employment in the UK.

With this background, nearly 200,000 students will be graduating from University this month, the first of the “top-up-fees” generation. The steady stream of grim economic news that meets them at the University gates will make sober reading for the Class of ’09; a class more indebted than any of their predecessors. Promised higher earnings for higher fees by Labour, they are a generation facing huge let down, without apology.

Adding to their woes, research among the top 100 graduate employers show there are 14% fewer graduate vacancies than 2008 – a year in which many graduates struggled to find employment. Right across industry, graduate jobs have faced the chop in the race to cut costs and survive the recession. The worst hit sectors, such as finance and construction, have reported cuts in excess of 50% to graduate vacancies.

As the degree scrolls are handed out, the reality facing the Class of ’09 is very different to the one they were promised. Back in 2006, when many of these graduates entered University, Tony Blair was still Prime Minister, the economy was growing at 3% a year, and Gordon Brown still believed he’d abolished ‘boom-and-bust’. But as those same students began to think of their final year, and the career that lay ahead of them, the economic signs were already beginning to paint a very different picture.

In the second quarter of 2008 the economy turned sour, as the steepest decline in UK GDP in history began. Labour and Gordon Brown again promised that Britain would survive unscathed and was ‘uniquely placed’ to ride out the downturn. But promise soon turned to hope, and hope turned to blind optimism as the IMF warned the UK would face the worse slump in the world. Figures out today revealed hopes of a return to growth in the second quarter of 2009 were another false promise, as economy continues to slide, making the current recession the deepest since records began in 1955.

So, the challenge ahead for the Class of ‘09 is massive. 200,000 bright young hopefuls now needing to compete not only for jobs, but for survival and most importantly to avoid being written off for many years to come.

Read tomorrow for the challenge ahead.

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