Graduate under-employment rises as more take to the gig economy

Singapore

HALF a year before graduating from Yale-NUS College as an urban studies major, Reuben Su began applying for marketing jobs and positions in management associate programmes.

But he did not net a full-time job by his May 2017 graduation, so when a friend mentioned they needed some paid freelance design work done, he agreed to help. Other opportunities streamed in, and Mr Su has been doing freelance work in social media management, videography and event planning since.

"My schedule can be a bit crazy and manic, but I'd also like to think I'm embracing the future," he said of being a freelancer.

An annual survey of recent graduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU) released on Feb 26 found that 10.6 per cent reported being in freelance, part-time and temporary jobs.

This was up from 9.7 per cent in 2016. The proportion of grads who secured full-time permanent jobs fell from 79.9 per cent in 2016 to 78.4 per cent in 2017.

But experts say that because such surveys do not track the nature of their employment, there is cause for concern that some could be "underemployed," meaning that they could be doing jobs that they are over-qualified for, whether by choice or circumstance.

"Standard surveys at best capture part-time employment as a measure of under-employment - they ask whether someone would like to be full-time employed - instead of part-time, for example and they don't really get at this question of whether people are doing jobs they are overqualified for," said Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) professor Walter Theseira.

Chua Hak Bin, a Maybank Kim Eng economist said the unemployment rate among those under 30, which reached 7.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2017 from 7.1 per cent a year ago, is cause for concern.

"There is some speculation that more millennials might be going for graduate studies, freelance or gig economy jobs and may not be counted in the data because part of that might be secondary or part-time jobs," Dr Chua told The Business Times. "But some could be graduates in certain degrees, such as in the humanities, who could be struggling."

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said it tracks "time-related" under-employment, defined as part-timers who are willing and able to engage in additional work, as a proportion of all employed residents. That figure increased to 2.1 per cent, from 1.6 per cent in 2016 among degree holders.

Anecdotal data creates a mixed picture of the kind of work fresh university graduates take on. A 2017 graduate of NUS's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences said that a few of her classmates are working in tuition agencies, or internships paying less than S$1,000 a month, after not being able to find a full-time job.

Joshua Yim, chief executive of recruitment agency Achieve Group, said he has seen graduates in the humanities take up jobs such as tutoring, customer service officers, surveyors and Uber drivers.

One grad who completed his business and management degree in August 2017 at Singapore Institute of Management (SIM)'s partner University of London, said most in his programme were still job-hunting, with some taking on temporary jobs in customer service. He declined to be named as he is also looking for a job.

But some grads, such as Adia Tay, gave up the full-time life. The 2016 NTU graduate, who has a degree in digital filmmaking in May 2016, tried full-time and part-time work in marketing for over a year.

But she wanted more time to dedicate to her songwriting and performing. Since early 2018, she has been earning money from tuition, freelance writing and music gigs. It nets her about S$2,000, as opposed to the S$2,500 before Central Provident Fund (CPF) deductions she said she could have earned monthly with a full-time marketing job.

"I'll see if this is viable and if the tradeoff in terms of the lack of CPF and medical benefits is worth it," she said.

For Mr Su, even if his work does not bear much relevance to his academic training, he applies skills cultivated in his extra-curriculars in design and event management.

The trend of recent graduates being under-employed is "beginning to be noticeable" here, said Erman Tan, president of the Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI), due to the rise of the digital economy making roles more tech-driven.

"We're producing more graduates but the economic structuring may not be enough to produce such jobs for their skills," he said.

But attitudes towards work could also be changing as younger people eschew traditional nine-to-five employment for more flexibility and autonomy, he said.

Technology has also helped make it easier to participate in the gig economy with Internet platforms such as Uber. A MOM survey in 2016 found that there are 20,000 full-time and part-time gig freelance workers here.

Dr Theseira said the relatively high pay in some gig economy jobs, combined with fringe benefits such as the ability to be one's own boss, could make such jobs more attractive. "It's the short-term returns and benefits versus the alternatives."

Song Seng Wun, a CIMB private bank economist, thinks such gig economy jobs, even if they mean underemployment, could improve one's ability to think on one's feet and pave the way for career opportunities.

"Whether it's informal or formal work, all these are work-life experiences," he said.

On a macro level, given the new opportunities the gig economy has yielded, there is nothing wrong with such under-employment.

"We don't know whether we are going to be a Deliveroo rider or a banker forever," he said. "There's no good or bad job - a job is a job, as long as it creates economic activity."

But downsides for such workers include volatile earnings and less job security, the relative lack of job progression and minimal CPF contributions, Dr Chua said.

Mr Tan of SHRI said tracking underemployment could be difficult given the subjectivity involved in measuring over-qualification.

He suggested that salary surveys include a question about fresh graduates' level of engagement or satisfaction with their first job, to better gauge their attitudes towards work.

Dr Theseira said: "I would suggest that we explore adjustments to the graduate employment survey and other labour market surveys that do this, even though such measures may be less reliable than the traditional employment measures."