MYSPACE IN USER COLLAPSE AND DESPERATE MUSIC DEAL, BROWN CORNERED BY BAD BUSINESS FIGURES

Three big current stories are moving ahead rapidly. Events are pushing Murdoch and Brown into a corner at breakneck speed

MURDOCH MELTDOWN: New as yet unpublished figures show that Myspace has lost a staggering four-fifths of its users (MAT) in the last year, the Slog has learned. And a senior insider has confirmed that Newscorp will seal a deal with a major music supplier. Our mole writes, “A deal with the record labels is in the offing that would allow MySpace users to download some music free of charge. This would be a life-saver, because it’s clear that in its wisdom, the crowd has moved on to Facebook as the optimum social network”.

DITHERING GORDON: The accelerating UK inflation figures released this morning “are part of the Mandelson pressure on Brown to go early rather than wait” says out Tenmole, “everyone at Business now knows the game’s up. Mandy is firm that things can only get worse…”

BATTERED BALLS: An informed leaker inside Lord Mandelson’s orbit gave us these figures in the last hour:

1.There are only a maximum of 45,000 jobs for 450,000 graduating (uk) students.

2. 53% of the class of 2009 are still unemployed.

3. Blue Chip employers such as P&G get 20,000 apps for their 20 job vacancies.

4.2010 will be the worst ever year for grad jobs as 26% of the jobs are already filled with students who have done an internship with the company, and 400,000 graduates fight with the 450,000 graduating this year for 25,000 jobs.

5. The average student is now graduating with over £20,000 of debt.

6. Student fees are poised to rise after the election to over £5,000 per year.

7. Apps for Uni places have just jumped by 33% as both sixth formers and mature students seek to escape the ravages of the (un)employment market. 1 in 4 16 to 24 year old’s are currently out of work.

8. Internships/Work experience arenow the single most common source of graduate jobs. The HESA(HIGHER EMPLOYMENT STATISITCS AGENCY) states that 17% of all jobs are now from that source overtaking personal contacts 16%, recruitment agencies/websites 13% employer websites 12% and newspaper advertising 12%.

9. Parents paying for internships is becoming a new feature of the grad job market. Articles in the Times today 15th feb and Telegraph 18th December point to a growing trend. In the USA its becoming commonplace with parents paying up to $20,000 for a Summer Internship for their child.

10. Despite the massive increase in student numbers chasing an at best static number of jobs less than 5% of Unis have comprehensive formal job training as an integral part of their degree courses.

11. Only 1 University, Liverpool John Moores makes it mandatory for every course taught. It has a dedicated centre WOW (World of Work).

12. Most Unis view is that it is their job to teach students about their chosen subject not how to get a job.

13. 73% of students never ever visit their Careers Cenrtre.

14. I cant give you reliable stats, but I believe students with working class parents (now 24% of whom are going to Uni) are finding it much tougher than students of middle class parents (Well over 66% of whom go).
This is because the student of the working class parent does not have the informal social networks that the middle class parent does, which are now vitally important to help get your child the first step on the ladder.

15. And yet with all this going on most employers find recruiting graduates of a high enough calibre difficult and exspensive citing a lack of real world knowledge as the major factor missing in students today. In other words students dont even know what a real job looks like unless they have some real work experience. This of course explains why most employers make it a formal or informal mandatory for a CV.
It would of course help if student could spell, over 50% of most job apps have at least 1 spelling error or clumsy use of English.

Number Ten betting is now on a March vote, and the Balls strategy is looking very sick.