It feels as though I always knew that I wanted to go to university. I cannot even place a general time period in which I decided that it was the right choice to take in the pursuit of my career and life goals. More than anything, this is a testament to the lifelong ingraining that this seemingly obvious choice to go to university has been for myself, as well as many of my peers, so much so that I never really questioned it.
Now, after graduating following three more than enjoyable years (albeit fairly disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic) and with a degree I’m very proud of, I sit facing the next chapter of my life – a world of opportunity and adventure. But the only thought running through my mind, over and over, is: what now?
This question is a powerful one, and one that I feel I am far from finding the answer to. This question also carries with it many emotions: anxiety, doubt, disillusionment. I’ve gone through all the educational motions in areas of academia that I am passionate about, yet I’ve arrived at the end of this journey with little clarity about which field of work to pursue. Furthermore, the areas I do find interest in – most obviously writing – simply feel too out of reach to know where to begin. Overall, this creates a rather daunting feeling, like I’m losing out on precious time that I should be kick-starting my career with, wondering whether I’ll have to resort to any old position that I can get. The university promise of a prosperous career of one’s choosing starts to feel like a lie.
One thing that does bring me a comfort of sorts, however, is the fact that this is not an individual phenomenon. This is an issue that is affecting students and young people across the country, and one that has been exacerbated over time. One immediate signifier to look towards is the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic upon the labour market for young people. A government report shows although unemployment levels – which were hit very hard over the past 18 months – have returned to their pre-pandemic statuses, the levels for young people remains lower. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of people who did lose their jobs during the pandemic were under 25. The mental and financial damage this has caused for the up-and-coming generation of workers can only be imagined. To make up such a large proportion of those whose jobs were cut during this period is also an indicator of how employers view and wish to treat their younger staff.
The inception of the pandemic and its effects upon young people in employment have only provided the most salient of impacts on job prospects, but there are other longer-term forces at work. The working world – and the world in general – that we are inheriting is vastly different from that of our parents - that goes without saying. Social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff explains how, as technology has exponentially advanced, the framework of the workplace has shifted from a division of labour to a division of learning. “Instead of the hands-on tasks associated with raw materials and equipment, doing ‘a good job’ came to mean monitoring data on screens and mastering the skills to understand, learn from, and act through the medium of this electronic text,” she says.
Essentially, the entire language of what we deem valuable and desirable work has taken a dramatic shift towards positions which require more ‘intellectual’ skills such as administration and computing. And sure enough, the number of people pursuing these newfound high-end jobs has increased, with the average student population nearly doubling since 1990. The ultimate effect of these two shifts, however, has delivered a continuous and arguably worsening oversaturation at the top of the job market. As Zuboff adds, the new machines and computers available to us have cut out a large middle portion of the workplace, creating a major polarisation between the ‘less-skilled’ jobs at the bottom, and the ‘more-skilled’ at the top. Without the room to work up in between, the top becomes an incredibly competitive arena, with new graduates battling for any position they can land in. To top this all off, our generation has come of age in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which has left the economy, and society as a whole, in its worst state in decades: real wages falling, social welfare declining, public funding reclining.
So, this is where I, and so many of my young peers, find ourselves. Of course, the opportunities are there, especially for those with vocational degrees such as medicine and engineering. Nevertheless, there is a clear anxiety stretched out across the nation’s youth over which path to choose and – just as important – which to avoid. In the information age it’s hard enough to keep up with technology, let alone the jobs which its progression deems worthy or important. The addition of the internet into this mix also adds a bombardment, or possibly even an illusion, of what feels like an endless stream of application opportunities. But with this, comes what also feels like an endless stream of rejection letters, or worse, radio silence from potential employers.
However, all hope is not lost. Ultimately, there’s no need to have ‘found your calling’ at the beginning of your career, and no reason why your ‘calling’ should be some single line of occupation. A report by Zippia found that, as of 2021, the average person changes jobs 12 times in their lifetime, with the average employee staying with their employer for just over four years. This fluidity in the job market is a new kind that can actually be accredited to the information age, granting many the liberty of options to jump from one field of work to the next. Anecdotally, I can look to my mother’s career as evidence of this, where she’s found work in sub-editing, teaching, journalism, creative writing and more. There is always time to change your mind and start on a new path.
On an even greater level, reminding oneself that the anxiety over being able to find work that you love is the most of your societal worries, is rather sobering. In many places around the world, the privilege to have any choice over how you earn your income – or to even be allowed to work at all – is not granted. Many have far more existential threats to be concerned with than whether they’ll go into finance, law or graphic design. In some ways, then, we have to tell ourselves that we’re lucky. Not all of life’s purpose is derived from our work – far from it. The pressures we face are all relative, exerted on us by societal expectations, but they don’t need to define us. I still sit with the thought that, in the end, everything will work out the way it's supposed to. For now, I’m taking a breather from the postgraduate stress, saving up some money and going off to travel for a little while. Times may be tough on the labour market right now, but they will get better. There will always be time to be worrying, so I’ll save that for another time.
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