ONE of the many depressing aspects of the continuing recession across southern Europe is the large number of highly qualified and extremely able young people who are struggling to build a career.
Many come to Barcelona, from around the globe, to study for a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree at one of the renowned English language business schools in the city, some stick around to work in the many multinational businesses that have their regional headquarters here.
Of course every recession creates a pool of graduate unemployment, but this is something different. For a start most of them left decent early careers to study for an MBA and are now carrying around substantial debts (£30,000 and more is quite commonplace) that were taken on during the boom years to finance their studies. The debts racked up by unemployed MBA graduates are yet another component of the great Spanish financial disaster.
These are not the scion of wealthy families, but people from all walks of life who took a chance and who are now turning 30 and seeing opportunities slipping away.
Quite a few MBA graduates make a beeline for the UK – especially to London, Manchester and Edinburgh – which is still widely perceived as the centre of world commerce and having a stint working there is seen as a massive boost to the CV and future career opportunities. A fair proportion of them eventually bounce back to Barcelona, citing the British weather, NHS nightmares or, in the case of young single females, the constant harassment from Islamic men in the UK.
A couple of years ago this tribe of multi-lingual, bright, hardworking young people, drawn largely from Russia, Hungary, Romania, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India, moved between jobs with the same ease with which they would hop between bars on a Saturday night. Those were the days when an MBA from any half-decent business school guaranteed that employers would be lining up to offer graduates six figure salaries. MBA qualifications, heavy on corporate financial modelling, used to be considered the ultimate symbol of business acumen.
It is not like that anymore: recruitment freezes, management restructuring and plain old redundancies have created a glut of MBA graduates who now spend their time nursing a single drink all night and attempting to keep face by discussing the nonexistent job offers they think that they will have to pass on (“not really what I want to do”), or vague “projects” that for some ill-defined reasons never really ever seem to come to anything.
They all speak beautiful English, and are fluent in management-speak, and annoying as that benighted jargon can be, you have to admire their front and pride.
Some would like to go back to the UK now that the economy on the mainland is starting to regain momentum, but find that the British visa system, which throws the door wide open to jihadists, criminal gangs and welfare junkies spouting “human rights” platitudes, now makes it very difficult for the brightest and the best to take up a job offer.
When the international economy starts to shift back into gear many of them will get vacuumed up in the inevitable multinational recruitment splurge, but such are the numbers of MBAs standing in the hiring line that salaries will be trimmed and many will be passed over completely as companies rush to grab newer graduates.
Hopefully many of them will turn their hand to business start-ups and provide a new engine of European economic innovation, and the UK is still seen as the best place to do that, but too many MBA courses simply train people to administer big business rather than providing them with entrepreneurial skills.
It all seems like an appalling waste of talent and optimism, but there is also the bitter irony that it was the corporate MBA culture – which emphasises short-term gains over longer term development and manipulating spreadsheets above understanding ideas and customers – helped create the booms and the bubbles and played a significant role in the financial crash.
Hopefully the business schools are reflecting on this and will rework their programmes in order to nurture a more rounded outlook towards doing business.