Oil and Gas Masters of Tesco Teller Points

By Feso Bright


The global recession came, saw and conquered. Guess what? It is still here and is still conquering. Pursuing a post graduate education is a strategy to beat the recession; so long as it is a short one. That, ladies and gentlemen is a BIG PROVISO. Since August 2007, the crisis was triggered by the United States (US) sub-prime mortgage crisis whereby the US interest rates were high and house prices were falling. Home owners were increasingly unable to make payments on their mortgages and huge defaults on loans began. These loans had majorly been secured by hard to quantify and disentangle collaterized debt obligation (CDO) instruments and other mortgage backed securities. These CDO’s became impossible to separate and sell off during loan defaults; thus hard to value, leading to a virtual collapse of bank balance sheets on the assets side and interbank lending ceased (Feso Bright, 2010). The rest, as they say, is now history.

As we speak, global economies are still reeling 3 years on. The Eurozone recently bailed out Greece with a 3-year £95bn package to save the greek economy from the brink of bankruptcy( BBC, 2010). Ireland received £72bn while the UK economy has committed to cut out £6.2bn in ''wasteful'' expenditure. The almighty US cannot be left out of this consideration with $14trn of staggering national debt. The major hope for this world comes from the economies of the BRIC countries, while the outlook  remains bleak overall. 

In the UK, Graduate program enrolment has increased steadily since the recession began. In fact Statistics show that "for taught postgraduate courses, there has been a 127% increase in applications from home and EU students, and a 79% increase in international students" . However, the immediate rewards of post graduate programes remain to be seen in these uncertain times such that one in four graduates faces unemployment in the UK. To put this in perspective, last year there were 48 applications for every position; now there are 70 applications for every job. In fact, "the class of 2010 have been told to consider flipping burgers or stacking shelves when they leave university as leading firms in investment banking, law and IT are due to

cut graduate jobs this year".

The reality check is that part time jobs have become inevitable; they are not ideal but economically expedient within the current global economic circumstances. Otherwise where do we expect every 69 people unsuccessful at a job application to obtain their livelihood from? Staring unemployment figures of 2.5million in the face, graduates have embraced part time work which has now risen to its highest employment level since records began in 1992. Thus employers of part time labour such as M & S, Tescos, Sainsburys and the rest of corporate UK are benefiting from and contributing to an under-utilization of talent. The UK government has its fair share of blame with respect to ''highly-skilled'' migrants as well. As Theresa May (Home Secretary, UK) suggests, "at least 30% of tier one migrants work in low-skilled occupations such as stacking shelves, driving taxis or working as security guards and some don't have a job at all." 

It appears now that unless the economic downturn ceases, this trend shall not reverse. The world currently faces a glut of skilled labour with very little commensurate employment opportunity. What then shall each current or potential post graduate candidate do? Bury their head in the sand and wait for the recession to be over before embarking on the programe; regret embarking on an expensive academic ''exercise''; defer admission; accept low-skilled and low-paying jobs as their ''fate''? I think not. A masters program confers a default edge and an economic advantage over anyone with a first degree (except for masters programes in arts and the humanities); also, postgraduate courses are more focused and specialized than undergraduate degrees; they open your horizon and equip you with the skills to transform that horizon into opportunites for societal progress. 

What then happens if the whole world now seems to be populated by people with postgraduate degrees? The differentiating factor then becomes one's vision and drive for success. Unfortunately, this fact is always left out when Business schools and Universities are traveling the world and marketing their Universities to potential students. Especially for the UK, most students end up enrolling for their programs with lofty goals of dream jobs that await them in the UK upon completion of the masters and other post graduate programs. Most will enroll for a masters in information technology and may end up as customer service agents, some may enroll for an environmental management masters program and end up as masters of gardening; others may study energy, hoping for petro-dollar careers and end up as oil and gas masters of tesco teller points. This is the heritage of our modern economies and current business leaders; one that OUR GENERATION must not pass on to the future .....if and when we do make it to become the business leaders and policy makers of our time. As, John Maynard Keynes said: " in the long run we are all dead!"; change must happen now.