hello, everybody. a very warm welcome to talking business weekly with me, aaron heslehurst. let's go and take a look at what's on the show. it's sort of a false story they tell us when we go to university, we're going to get a good job if you get good grades. and that's just a falsehood, in my opinion. it's about the experience, ultimately. and without the experience, many people just won't get into a good job. yep, the great graduate gamble. student debts are on the rise in many countries, while pay packets are failing to keep up with soaring prices. so does it still pay to go to university? today's gloomy economic outlook has many companies cutting back, leaving graduates in some countries, like here in the uk, being offered lessjobs for, in real terms, less money. but it's not all doom and gloom, with other

countries like india, singapore and the us still on the up. so what's it like to graduate and put your degree into practice? and what can today's students do to make getting that dream job a little easier? i'm also going to be discussing all of this with these two, there they are, the big boss of the association linking thousands of colleges to careers across the united states, and the chief executive of the collective voice for universities here in the united kingdom. and to dig a little deeper, i'm going to be talking jobs with the global chief of people at one of the top graduate employers, the consulting giant deloitte. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, as students graduating from university and trying to enter the world of work, they are facing an uphill struggle in some of the world's leading economies. they're a generation of learners who have faced a unique set of obstacles,

with the onset of the covid pandemic shuttering classrooms, crippling social functions, the fun part, and ushering in remote learning. now they're entering a world of work, which in some places is offering fewer jobs and opportunities. why? well, employers — they're facing a gloomy economic picture in a world buffeted by war and a climate crisis, with looming recessions and spiralling costs. despite this, more and more people are making the decision to enter into higher education, weighing up the costs and the potential benefits, hopefully to open the door to future jobs with higher wages, a path that by and large pays off. you know, people holding degrees earn on average over 40% more than those without. but those degrees, like many things today, come with an increasing cost, with the us providing the most extreme example. student loan debt in america has more than doubled in the past 20 years to over $1.7 trillion.

and here in england, a move towards a more american—style payment system has seen a similar upward growth, with the average student starting this year expected to owe over $50,000 by the end of their course. now, if at the end of that course, you move straight into a graduatejob, well, that might seem like money well spent, but for others, it's much more of a struggle. for example, in china, where there's more than 11 million graduates entering the workforce this year, facing an economy where, well, according to beijing's latest numbers, over one in five, 16—to—24—year—olds are out of work. and in some of europe's major economies, like france and germany, wherejobs for graduates were down nearly a quarter compared to last year, and down nearly a third right here in the uk. but it's a different story for growth markets like india and singapore, where the graduatejobs market, it is thriving. and the united states where low unemployment and falling inflation saw over 100,000 more

graduatejobs advertise compared to last year. so, there's some of the numbers, but what about those who are just starting theirjourney? how are they finding it? well, let's have a listen. as an international student, it was kind of really difficult for me to get a graduate job. i had to start applying and start looking into job and building my cv from year one, which again was really difficult for me because year one for me was all covid and it was 2020. but again, i just sort of tried to gain as much experience as i could and build a lot of soft skills along with my academic, strong academic record as well. so i would say personally that it has been a journey, but i've enjoyed it so far, and throughout ijust sort of focused more on building my skills rather than only focusing on the academic aspect. because, like i said, these days, soft skills also matter a lot. i managed to secure a very

good graduate role this year, but i count myself as extremely lucky. everyone gets good grades nowadays, and it is simply so competitive, to be able to put yourself in good stead to get a good job opportunity or a graduate training contract, for me personally, i had to have previous work experience and that was a rarity among my cohorts. it is very difficult to, especially following post pandemic, to gain valuable work experience with for employers to make you even employable. actually i find it quite hard to land a job. i i would say so because before i get thisjob, i send out - hundreds of applications i and had so many interviews with more than ten companies. as i actually started . looking for a job quite

early from june 2022, l i tried so many graduate schemes with a lot of- companies, but you know, ijust got nothing from it. sometimes, back in to the time that i stayedl unemployed, iasked myself, "am i aiming too high? - "am i not good - enough for them?" so that's the thing that, you know, it's not- easy to stay positive. ok, so that's some of the graduates here in the uk who are just starting out. but let's jump across the pond now to the united states, where the jobs market, as i've mentioned, remains resilient. so, i caught up with the president of the national association of colleges and employers. shawn vanderziel, a real pleasure having you on the show. and shawn, let me start with this, because our data shows a relatively steady graduatejobs market in the us. i'mjust wondering, shawn, how are you seeing things? the graduate job market for the class thatjust graduated is really good. our research shows that

companies are hiring about 4% more graduates this year than the previous year. and the previous year had a considerable increase due to the recalibration of college graduates being hired from the previous covid decreases. and the overall employment landscape in the us is pretty good. while we've seen some slowing down in recent months, we're still at historic low unemployment rates and we still have considerablejob growth month over month. we've touched upon the seemingly ever—rising costs of higher education in the us. i mean, with student debt, the levels there, it's the second largest block of private debt in the country, it's like $1.7 trillion. how much, shawn, how much of a burden is that cost on graduates? pursuing a college education is really expensive and the higher education community needs to resolve this issue. if we are going to have

more students go through the college experience, it's a really big deal. but we also find that studies are showing that even students who have debt long after their degree completion, they still say that the degree completion was worth it. so there's a reckoning certainly that needs to happen here in the united states market. and as a person considering starting out in higher education in college or university, how do you weigh up those costs with your future career potential? i'm wondering what kind of courses are proving popular. what we find is that obtaining a college degree does pay off in salary, both short term and long term. there's about a 20% to 30% premium in pay at each degree level on average that a person obtains. so a 20% to 30% at the associate�*s degree level, another 20 to 30% at the bachelor's degree level, so on and so forth. so it certainly is paying

off in terms of salary. there are certain sectors and degrees which are hiring more than others right now, and so certainly students who are entering the labour market may be wanting to think about that. the highest demands for graduates right now tend to be in the transportation sector engineering services, finance and insurance, and in chemical pharmaceutical manufacturing. and how important is that first job after college or university? i mean, people people don't always know what field they want to work in straight out of higher education. the firstjob is an important one. it lays the foundation of your experience for the future, but also is a great time to explore and to really understand what you want to do on an ongoing basis. what we know from students in terms of what's important to them, they want a job with job security. they want to know that they're going to develop some skills

that they can take with them when they leave that company. and so looking for a job where you can develop skills, where it's a company that's going to treat you really well, is really important in that firstjob. and shawn, let me end on this. what single piece of advice would you give to a recent graduate in the early stages of finding their way into the world of work, who haven't yet started a graduate grade job? really focus in on your experiences while you're in college and take an inventory of all of those experiences, because it's really important to employers, particularly anything where you have applied the skills and knowledge that you have obtained. employers want to see that on your resume. they're going to want to hear about it when you interview with them. so take that inventory. don't undercut any of the experiences you've had, whether it's part time jobs,

internships, apprenticeships, any other types of experiences, including projects that you have done in your coursework. they're all vitally important to tell the story about why you would be a great hire for that company. shawn vanderziel, the big boss of the national association of colleges and employers, a real pleasure having you on the show and we'll talk to you soon. thank you so much. well, back to the uk now because it is home to some of the world's top institutions for higher education. but are they doing enough to prepare their students to take the next step? well, to find out, i've gone straight to the source with the big boss of universities uk. vivienne stern, a real pleasure having you on the show. and vivienne, let's start with this, because if we look at the numbers, let's be frank, they're not great. i mean, there's a decline in the number of graduate jobs being advertised. that's compared to last year. starting salary increases, they're well below inflation. vivienne, just how difficult of a time is it for people leaving university at the moment?

well, i think you've got to take a short—term and a long—term view. i mean, the sort of broader economic conditions, i think there's a widespread consensus. we've got to get our economy moving again and creating jobs and growing. but there's absolutely no question at all when you look at the longer—term labour market needs, you know, we are going to need those graduates. we're going to need more graduates in the future than we've got now. so it's always difficult for graduates who emerge when the economy is, you know, performing less well than we'd like it to. i don't think we're, you know, perhaps in some of the positions we've had during previous recessions where getting graduate jobs becomes quite difficult for a while. but in the medium to longer term, we need graduates, and the labour market, in fact is going to need quite a significant expansion in the number of graduates as we head towards 2035. vivienne, it does feel seemingly particularly bad here in the uk. why is that? is itjust down to the economy, or is it a case that there are just too many graduates?

in answer to your question of if there are too many graduates, absolutely not. i mean, wejust completed a survey of ftse 350 leaders, and we were asking them to project forward to answer questions what they thought their businesses were going to need in the future. and it's really striking. we obviously saw a lot of feedback on the subject of how technology was going to change the world of work, and particularly technologies like generative ai. and the people who are responsible for hiring staff into those ftse 350 businesses were saying, "look, we're going to need the kind of people who come to our businesses with the higher—level thinking transferable skills that you get from being a graduate." and vivienne, as we know, uk students, they're racking up more and more debt. with people starting out this year, they're projected to owe around £110,000, that's over $50,000, by the end of their course. vivienne, how do you make sure

going to university pays off? the first thing to say is it may feel like a huge cost, but we've got an income contingent loan scheme, so nobody has to pay up front to do an undergraduate degree in the uk. if you're a uk student, you can take a loan out. you only repay that loan, in the english system, once you're earning a decent salary and you pay that as a kind of marginal tax contribution. i do understand that it feels like a considerable investment and it is, you know, it really is a significant decision for an individual to to do a degree. but we know from lots of data that those people who do get a degree tend to earn more over the course of their lifetime. and we know, vivienne, universities here in the uk, they're world leading, certainly one of the uk's success stories, attracting

students from all over the globe. with fees from international students now a significant part of the financial make—up of these institutions, is that, vivienne, is that set to expand? i'm wondering if enough is being done to allow that area to grow. well, i mean, look, international students studying in the uk isjust kind of good all ways round. so, you know, the international students who come and study with us, i think by and large they have a pretty great experience because as you say, we've got a very good university system by international standards. universities are better because they've got students from all over the world. that makes for a really rich learning environment. and of course, the fees that they pay and the economic contribution they make to the uk are very important both to universities themselves but also to the towns and cities that those students come and live in. there's a broader question, though, about whether it's right that we've got a system that's increasingly reliant on fees from international students to pay for the education of uk students, and even more so to subsidise

our research effort. and i would say, this, it's a really good thing we're so attractive, but that doesn't mean it's okay to allow the system to become overly reliant on international student fees. that's quite a different matter. can ijust ask you, though, do you believe, is it overreliant basically on on international students and those fees that they pay? we've got a system now where in all four nations of the uk, the amounts of money that universities get to teach students is in decline. now, universities will do what they can to kind of make ends meet, and one of the ways that they do that is by by diversifying their income streams, so international student income becomes very important. but you can't let that go on and expect the system to maintain its reputation for outstanding higher education by international comparison.

and what about the courses, vivienne, that people take? i mean, we heara lot, of course, about the need for more engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, but again, i'm wondering, is there still a place for the arts which maybe provide much less of an obvious path into a job? there's massively a place for the arts, and i think it's quite important for commentators and politicians to be a bit careful what they what they say, because, you know, you might put people off doing something that in the end would be better for them as a as an individual. so i would say, yes, you should be mindful that the course you choose may have quite strong influence on your own potential, on where you can work and the kind ofjobs you can do, and you should be thinking very carefully about that before you make your choice, but there's no one answer which is right and the other ones are wrong. we need this creative industry sector in the uk. we need creative graduates. vivienne stern, the big boss of universities uk,

a real pleasure having you on the show. thanks for your time, vivienne. thank you, my pleasure. ok, so so far in the show, we've covered the plight of today's graduates making their way into the world of work and the universities that help them get there. well, now it's time to, well, hear from the other side — the employers. and one of the biggest in the world is the consulting giant deloitte. so i caught up with its global chief of people and purpose. elizabeth faber, a real pleasure having you on the show. and elizabeth, let's start with this, i'm wondering, how much do you value higher education as a route into the workplace? is it the be all and end all of topjobs, or are there other routes in? well, aaron, thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. and of course, higher education is important for organisations like deloitte, but there are other talent models that we consider as well. it's essential for deloitte as well as other organisations to create a diverse workforce. and in order to do that we deploy a variety

of recruiting models, including earn—while—you—learn, or hire—to—train type models globally. so we have great examples of this in countries around the world in which deloitte operates. some examples would be in deloitte uk, where we have an apprenticeship model, and work closely to have certifications and qualifications that are earned by apprentices as theyjoin deloitte. to date, we've had over 300 participate in that programme. that's in the uk alone. where i used to live in asia—pacific, we have some great examples in australia and in india where we're working together side by side with universities and other organisations to create skills such as esg and cyber and technology in our new recruits, so that they are learning with deloitte as they are earning their initial paycheques. how do you attract the right workers? what skills in particular are you looking for at the moment? i mean, what fields

are most sought after? the way that deloitte and other organisations look at attracting talent and skills that we look for, particularly in light of transformative technologies like generative ai, is that some things change and some things stay the same. so what stays the same? 0rganisations still look for those soft and hard skills. soft skills, like the ability to think critically, to communicate clearly, to collaborate across diverse teams and to learn quickly. these are soft skills that are core to many organisations today and highly valued. what changes? well, with technology transformations such as generative ai, roles and jobs will change. the key will be for workforces to have the agility to learn and adapt and gain fluency in these new technologies, and for leadership to have a clear vision on how the technologies will be embraced in the organisation responsibly and safely.

how important are things like environmental issues and a company's stance on social issues to these new workers? because with a tight labour market, certainly in places like the united states, our potential employees making decisions over, well, much more thanjust things like salaries. well, climate and sustainability remain a key priority for millennials and gen z, as we see in the deloitte annual survey. in fact, many gen zs and millennials will make decisions on organisations tojoin or organisation or projects to accept based on alignment with their own values, including climate and sustainability. and we see that in terms of progress made, one out of six feel like they don't have the ability to properly influence their organisation's strategies around climate and sustainability. so what can organisations do in order to better engage their workforce? well, first, they can be clear about their climate

sustainability strategy. secondly, they can provide learning for their employees to help them be equipped for the low carbon economy and the transition that workforces will need to make. and finally, organisations can provide training for their people to help them make more informed decisions at work and at home on how they can improve the climate. and elizabeth, we've been speaking to recent graduates here in the uk, and we asked them if they had a chance to speak with you, what's one question that they would ask you? well, let's start with this question from benjamin. since the hiring criteria has changed in the development of artificial intelligence and big tech, how would i utilise those tools to put me in a better standing to succeed? well, benjamin, i would start by answering your question that we at deloitte, as well as other organisations, will look at some foundational capabilities that you bring,

such as these soft skills that i've mentioned, on being able to articulate yourself clearly, clearly communicate, to be able to work across diverse teams globally and diverse teams in terms of skill sets and capabilities to be able to think critically and to learn quickly. that's core for new technologies such as generative ai. so i would focus on emphasising those skills and capabilities first. and then in terms of your technical expertise, well, that is very valuable now. that will change over time, so that's why it's important to demonstrate your ability to learn new technologies and apply them in a safe and responsible way to future employers. and here's a question from echo. to my own experience, working is easy, but. finding the job is hard. so why the gap?

well, echo, it's a good question. it's sort of like, how do i stand out so i can get in? and the way, you know, deloitte, like other organisations, global leaders are competitive. we are we do have a high performance culture. we do have high standards and high expectations. so i understand that, and i think that in terms of making yourself more marketable, some keys would be developing as much expertise and experience as you can, knowing that that there may be some constraints in a university or in a school setting, but doing your best, leveraging your professors and your network, and connecting with organisations such as deloitte to learn more about what they're looking for in their new recruits. elizabeth faber, global chief

people and purpose 0fficer at deloitte, a real pleasure having you on the show. thanks for your time and we'll check in with you soon. thank you, aaron. it's a pleasure being with you. well, that's it for this week's show. i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. of course, you can also follow me on x. x me, i'll x you back. you can get me @bbcaaron. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon. bye— bye. good morning, all. wow, what an incredible week of weather we have just experienced across the uk. for six consecutive days we saw temperatures on or above 30 degrees. that was a september

record and on saturday, we saw the highest temperature we've seen this year, with 33 degrees. the weather story will change though over the next couple of days with the introduction of this pretty slow—moving weather front. it will gradually change the wind direction to more of a north—westerly, which is going to introduce, slowly, some fresher air from the north. but before that, we've got quite a muggy feel out there and some sharp thundery downpours pushing in from the south—west over the next few hours. temperatures first thing sunday morning will be sitting mid to high teens, quite widely across england and wales. a little bit fresher, particularly to the north—west of the great glen. but please bear that in mind if you have got a ticket for the start line for the great north run. it's going to be a muggy old story and there will be a lot of sunshine around as well, both for the spectators and the athletes as well. we run the risk of some thundery downpours continuing to move their way steadily north as we go through the day,

so it's going to be sunny spells and sharp showers. the showers pretty hit and miss though and with the sunshine, we will continue to see some warmth. some of those showers could once again be heavy and thundery as they're moving their way steadily northwards. into scotland, central parts of scotland and northern ireland, largely fine and dry and here is our weatherfront into the far north—west still producing some outbreaks of rain here. so a fresher feel here but elsewhere, we could still see temperatures into the mid to high 20s, perhaps peaking in the south—east 32, possibly 33 degrees once again, depending on how much sunshine we see. as we go through the evening and into the early hours of monday morning we'll see some sharp thundery downpours again drifting their way steadily northwards. the thunderstorms will gradually ease and that weather front will gradually slip its way steadily south. temperatures perhaps into the mid—teens ahead of it but it's monday when we will start to see the signs of more of a significant change. as we go through the week

ahead, it turns a little bit fresher and certainly more unsettled. that's it, take care.

live from washington,

this is a bbc news special report on the g20. world leaders conclude their high—level summit in india's capital, addressing global trade, transportation and security. but it's the group's response to russia's war on ukraine that's taking centre—stage this year. i'm helena humphrey. it is good to have you with us. the annual summit of the world's 20 largest economies has wrapped up in delhi. but the powerful g20 stopped short this year of a strong condemnation of one of its own, russia, for its war on ukraine. instead, a joint declaration says that all states involved in the conflict must "refrain" from the "use of force" for territorial gain. but there's no reference to russian aggression. it reads, in part, quote:

"we highlighted the human suffering and negative added