What hope is there for today's unlucky graduates?

Spectator

3 days ago

I'm fresh out of advice for those now leaving university and wondering how on earth they're going to make a living and live their dreams. This week's bad news (from the job search website Adzuna) was that graduate and other entry-level vacancies have fallen almost a third since the launch of the AI chatbot. Should this unlucky post-Covid cohort stay on at 'uni' for another degree? Or does that mean racking up student debt without enhancing employability?
I used to urge everyone to go abroad in their twenties before family responsibilities overtake. But where to now? Hong Kong and mainland China are out; it's the wrong time to go to America or the Middle East; they'll need work permits for the EU. Maybe Mark Carney's resurgent Canada – a destination out of fashion for Brits since the 1950s – will become the hot new place to go.
Closer to home, what of careers in journalism? At a recent seminar in Oxford, a panel of veterans agreed it's more fun than having a real job but demands relentless self-promotion to achieve bare subsistence earnings. And oldsters like me can't even use a lifetime's contacts to help youngsters who have the gumption to ask, because these days that's seen as elitist and unfair.
What else can I say? You're on your own, kids. But when I was your age in the 1970s, prospects felt a lot darker than today. It took a decade and a radical change of government, but horizons eventually brightened beyond anything we imagined at the nadir. So wait for the wheel of fate to turn, and meanwhile keep busy in the most stimulating ways you can find.
You might become a day trader, dabbling in any market – crypto if you must – that moves. And there I might be able to help with occasional tips, noting smugly that shares in the gold miner Fresnillo are up 44 per cent since mentioned in April.
More sensibly, you might start your own business. I laughed at a picture of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has done so much harm to enterprise, 'saluting start-ups at No. 11'. But she's right that high-growth companies are the only things that will create better jobs to replace so many that have gone missing. And I can help there too, by pointing you towards The Spectator's Economic Innovator Awards. One way or another, my young friends, the motto must be never lose hope.
Lotus crash?
'Lotus to end carmaking in the UK after 70 years' was Saturday's headline, followed by 'Reprieve for Lotus factory in Norfolk' on Sunday. What happened in between? The Lotus sports car marque has long stood for engineering brilliance combined with financial turmoil. Since 2017 it has been controlled by Geely, the Chinese giant which also owns Volvo. In response to Donald Trump's tariffs, it halted production in Norfolk where it employs 1,300 workers and was reported to be planning a new plant in the US.
But after an intervention by the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Lotus's (presumably AI-driven) PR machine changed its tune to 'exploring strategic options to enhance efficiency and ensure global competitiveness in an evolving market'. Whatever that means, expect Lotus to depart these shores by next year.
Lost tribe
At a 90th birthday lunch for a friend from my banking career back in the mists of time, I'm moved to an impromptu speech quoting my long-forgotten book Falling Eagle: the Decline of Barclays Bank, in which I wrote that great companies have never been 'machines for making money' but are 'accumulations of human skill, hope and weakness' with the distinctive character and folklore of historic regiments or primitive tribes. For those present, it felt as though our Barclays regiment had been disbanded – our tribe dispersed, if you prefer – a generation ago: none felt pride or affection for the bank of today beyond, let's be honest, its defined-benefit pension scheme. And as if to confirm that sense of severance, up popped news of Jes Staley, the pugnacious American boss of Barclays from 2015 to 2021 who stood down after a Financial Conduct Authority investigation into his friendship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but challenged the FCA's decision to ban him from senior jobs in financial services. The Upper Tribunal upheld that judgment last week and the FCA repeated its finding that Staley had acted recklessly and 'with a lack of integrity'. 'Every time a sentence is written about him,' one City source observed, 'Epstein will get a mention.' Indeed so – and every time Barclays is named alongside, our lost tribe will utter a collective sigh of regret.
Rail against
I warned a month or so ago that ministers and union leaders who are ideologically set on renationalising the railways were also conspiring to scrap the passenger-friendly 'open access' system that allows licenced operators such as Lumo and Grand Central to compete against mainline franchisees. Following a select committee hearing in which Mick Lynch of the RMT union damned as 'parasites' these freelance services which many regular travellers regard as the best thing on the network, the Secretary of State Heidi Alexander has ordered a 'review' of open access, on the basis of a claim that it extracts 'supernormal profits' of more than £200 million a year at taxpayers' cost.
Several new open-access bids, including one from Sir Richard Branson to bring Virgin trains back into competition against Avanti on the West Coast mainline, are under threat – and despite Alexander's assurances to the contrary, I'd bet on open access being abolished entirely by the time Labour limps out of power.
And now the King has been persuaded to decommission the royal train. Why am I suddenly seeing a vision from Doctor Zhivago of the Bolshevik commander Strelnikov lurking behind his armoured locomotive?