News

15/01/09

Graduates Head Abroad To Escape Credit Crunch

A leading resort workers job site has reported a massive increase in graduates seeking to escape the depressing UK jobs market by taking jobs abroad as Holiday Reps.

In the past Resortwork.co.uk has got most of its applications for these types of jobs from gap year students or "seasonaires" who move from ski season to summer season, but now graduates who can't find a job have joined the rush to escape the UK credit crunch for a few months.

The site reports that graduate applications used to only make up 13% of total applicants for these kinds of jobs, but over the past month this has shot up to over 33% .

Commenting on this unprecedented change, Matt Rogers of Resortwork.co.uk said:

"In the past month we have seen 2,000 more graduates applying for seasonal jobs abroad. In 10 years of seasonal recruitment we have never seen anything like this before. One third of our applicants are now educated to degree standard. The companies we recruit for are simply not used to getting this many graduate level applicants for these kind of jobs. These are not graduates taking a structured year out – they have simply given up on finding an entry level job in the UK.

Resort jobs can offer graduates valuable international work experience and help them develop good communication skills. I think anyone who does this sort of work will be more employable when they come back to the UK job market."

Most summer season jobs abroad run from April to September/October so most of these graduates will be hoping the UK economy has improved by the time they get back.