This young Londoner spent three years getting an
architecture degree — only to face a choice between menial work and
joblessness. On the second day of our special report, we highlight the plight
of graduates forced to clean lavatories for a living. Our investigation shows
73 young people are fighting for every graduate job. We reveal that the rate of
graduate unemployment has almost doubled in the last five years, creating a
climate of despair among students who are already leaving university tens of
thousands of pounds in debt.
Architecture graduate Debo Ajose-Adeogun has a
spectacular panoramic view of the Olympic Park from the top of his high-rise
block in Stratford. The 24-year-old Londoner has watched this part of Newham be
transformed from a neglected backwater to the fastest developing part of the
capital.
Seven years ago, when London won its Games bid, he saw
an opportunity to be part of the regeneration buzz and decided to become an
architect.
“I thought that with the Olympics coming to my home
borough, there would be plenty of work for a young, hungry draughtsman,” he
said.
He took out a student loan, knuckled down and worked
hard. Three years later Debo returned to Newham with a degree in architecture
from Birmingham University, eager for a job. “It was exciting,” he said, though
taking his degree had left him £18,000 in debt.
“I had watched the Olympic Stadium being built and
every time an office, hotel or apartment block started up I found out the
developer’s name and applied for a job. I thought it was just a matter of time
before they took someone with my qualifications.”
But Debo, who came to London from Nigeria as a boy,
made little headway. In the last three years, apart from a fixed-term contract
as a housing association officer that lasted eight months, he has been unable
to find work and has been unemployed for two years.
“I’ve made more than 250 applications for an
entry-level position as a designer, architect’s assistant, surveyor or
something in the housing construction sector but all I’ve managed is three
unsuccessful interviews,” he said.
“It’s demoralising. After your 10th rejection you
redouble your efforts, after your 50th you doubt yourself, after your 150th you
feel worthless.
“Recently I took a job as a part-time sales assistant
with Evans women’s clothing store in the old Stratford Mall. It’s menial,
minimum wage work but it’s better than nothing. I can’t believe I did three
years of university for this but what are my choices? I would rather do some
work than nothing.”
Debo’s dilemma is increasingly common. On day two of
our special investigation into youth unemployment in London, we report that the
number of graduates forced to take menial jobs in “elementary occupations” — as
cleaners, labourers, shelf stackers, hotel porters and rubbish collectors — has
doubled in the last five years.
And as the Higher Education Statistics Agency reports,
these are not even the worst-off graduates. Nine per cent of full-time
graduates, 20,620 in all, are still unemployed six months after completing
their degrees, compared with just over half that in 2007.
A total of 120,000 young adults aged 16 to 24 are
unemployed in London — or one in four, which is three times the jobless rate of
older Londoners. If there is one stand-out statistic that captures how tough it
is to get a job, it is this: in 2012 there were 73 applications on average for
every advertised graduate job vacancy — a 150 per cent rise on the position
five years ago, according to the Association of Graduate Recruiters.
The consequence is that many graduates are forced to
compete for menial jobs that would typically be filled by people with no
qualifications.
ANTHROPOLOGY graduate Hannah Simmons, 22, is a case in
point. Six months ago she applied for a summer job with a large cleaning
company that had contracts for Wimbledon and the Olympics. “I was called in for
an interview and they told me that they were recruiting toilet cleaners,” said
Hannah, from Ealing, who went to Manchester University.
“I told them I was up for that and showed them my
qualifications but was quite taken aback when they grilled me on my future
plans. I thought, this is a job for a toilet cleaner, right?
“Afterwards I never heard back. I felt angry because I
had spent money travelling to the interview by train and they didn’t even have
the grace to let me know.
“Two months later I got a call to say, ‘Sorry, we
haven’t chosen you but you are on the list as a reserve toilet cleaner. We’ll
call if somebody pulls out.’
“I was gobsmacked. I thought to myself, what have
things come to? Do I need a PhD to work as a toilet cleaner in London?
“As it happened, somebody pulled out and I did clean
toilets for the Wimbledon fortnight. The extraordinary thing is that almost all
of my fellow workers were also university graduates. We worked 15-hour days. I
would leave home at 6am and get back at 11pm, totally exhausted. The job market
is so tight. I have now decided to go and try my luck in Australia.”
OTHER new graduates also report that they have been
forced abroad. Bradley Bloom, a Londoner with an architecture degree from
Glasgow University, told how he secured a job on a new housing development,
only for the project to run out of money before it began.
“I arrived on my first day to find them packing up and
was told that the finance had fallen through and with it my job,” he said.
After searching for months, 22-year-old Bradley finally
found another job — in Holland. “I have grasped it with both hands,” he said.
“If I want to work at what I was trained for and
develop my career, I have to leave London and go abroad. Most of my classmates
have been unable to find any work in the profession. My only other friend who
has got work is in the same position. He got a job on a building project in
Berlin.”
Back in Debo’s nine-storey tower block, 40 per cent of
the 210 young adults who live there are unemployed, according to the estate’s
housing officer Tracey McGurl.
They range from graduates to young people who left
school with just a few GCSEs. “It is an incredibly tough time to be young and
coming on to the job market in London — maybe the worst ever,” said Ms McGurl.”
What does it feel like for Debo to be unemployed — or
under-employed — for more than two years and live among that level of
unemployment?
His one-bedroom flat on the fourth floor provides an
insight into his state of mind. On his desk — among his books on Le Corbusier,
Bauhaus and graphic design — is a well-thumbed leaflet that says: “How to get
up and go when you’re feeling low”.
Debo, who lived with his father and aunt after he
finished university, said: “I suffered depression when I couldn’t find a job.
My dad is a security guard and he couldn’t understand why I didn’t have a job
when I have a degree.
“I’d wake up in the morning and be in front of my
computer updating my CV and applying for jobs online and he’d come home at the
end of the day and see me in the same clothes, in exactly the same position and
he’d get incredibly angry with me.
“We got into a lot of heated arguments, with dad
thinking I wasn’t applying for jobs when in fact I was on the computer 24/7. He
made me feel even more of a failure and eventually I broke down and had to
leave. I still feel a lot of shame that I am a graduate and yet still
effectively unemployed.”
Giving the interview took courage. At first he wanted
to be anonymous but then he agreed to use his real name and be photographed. “I
decided to put my embarrassment to one side and tell my story in full because I
think everyone should know the hell that we young people are going through,” he
said. “The education system gave me a dream and for three years I hardly went
out because I worked to make that dream come true. I didn’t find university
easy, in fact, just the opposite.
“To have worked so hard and sacrificed so much and have
nothing to show for it is hard to take. The dream that was promised to us has
not been delivered. We have been shut out.”
Despite being knocked back, what is extraordinary about
Debo is that he refuses to give up. Now the Olympics are over, he is hopeful
that the Olympic Park redevelopment will bring a new raft of job opportunities
— and that this time a hungry young architecture graduate can be part of its
legacy.
“I’m a naturally optimistic person, that’s why I keep
trying,” he said.
“Most people think youngsters who are unemployed don’t
aspire to much, but it’s not true. We aspire to a lot and want to do the best
we can. All I ask for is a chance to show what I can do, to make my mark.”