Written by Jill on Tuesday July 13th 2010 in Press Releases, What We're Doing
US software company says it can’t see evidence of glut of graduates seeking work
AN American software firm with offices in Glasgow is struggling to recruit Scottish graduates despite a recent report saying 69 students are chasing every job. Boston-based Simul8 has launched a major recruitment drive to increase its staff by 25 per cent over the next six months. The company, which is used by the New Zealand and Scottish Government – for the Scottish court service – says it has to look to Europe and England for the recruits.
Catriona Paton, human resources manager said: “Reports state that 70 people in Scotland apply for every graduate position, but we just aren’t seeing it.
“More and more of our graduate positions are being filled by applicants from overseas and elsewhere in the UK, but with such strong links to Scottish universities, we’re keen to support local talent.”
It came as a leading academic attacked claims that too many graduates are being created.
Professor Bernard King, principal of Abertay University in Dundee, said more apprenticeships would “never allow Britain to compete with such low-wage economies as China, India and South America, unless we are prepared to become a low-wage economy ourselves.”
In his speech to new graduates yesterday, Professor King said: “The workforce for the future needs more, not less, investment in higher-level skills at first degree and postgraduate levels.
“To say, in a technologically sophisticated, urbanised and thus socially fragile world, that there is ‘too much higher education’ is short-sighted, deceiving and Luddite.”
He spoke after the Association of Graduate Recruiters earlier this week revealed a growing number of employers were refusing to consider anyone with less than a 2:1 degree. The AGR survey revealed every graduate vacancy this year is attracting an average of 69 applications, compared with 49 last year and 31 in 2008
Read the story on the newspaper’s website.