University To Universal Credit: How Class Of 2020 Is Graduating Straight Onto The Dole
“Sitting at home applying for dead-end jobs every day and getting no response is a really difficult situation to be in,” said Craig Brown, a business graduate who has just left Loughborough University and is now relying on Universal Credit.
“I’m worried how I’ll get through the next few months financially.”
Craig, 23, is part of the class of 2020 – a group of graduates who have been thrust into the working world amid not only the worst global pandemic in a century, but the UK’s second recession in 12 years.
A number of graduates told HuffPost UK how this “perfect storm” in the employment market had not only forced them to give up dreams of finding their ideal job straight out of the university – but struggling to find any kind of job at all.
Instead, they have been forced to apply for Universal Credit – a situation many of them could not have imagined before the coronavirus crisis gripped the global economy.
Analysts have warned that the class of 2020 – the 800,000 young people leaving school, college and university this summer – face “huge unemployment risks”, as well as long-term damage to their careers.
Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions reveal that in July there were 71,208 16- to 24-year-olds receiving their first Universal Credit payment – 80% higher than the 39,655 starting on UC in July 2019.
All in all, there were 725,000 people aged 20 to 24 receiving Universal Credit – a year-on-year increase of almost 420,000.
“It’s really demoralising,” said Craig, who is relying on benefit payments to survive while he applies for “dozens of jobs a day”.
“Most of them aren’t jobs I would ever want to take under normal conditions. But despite all of my efforts to go above and beyond studying during the pandemic, I’m not even getting responses.
“What makes it harder to swallow is that I invested so much energy into setting up a business at university and doing internships in parliament to...
