Since the 2024 October Economic budget has the job market for university students suffered?

Although living on a student budget has always meant working within reduced financial means, in 2025 during the midst of a national cost of living crisis and global recession, the financial effects on student life are greater.

This uncertainty is not alleviated by the “perma-crisis” (according to Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive at the British Retail Consortium) that the retail and hospitality industry are currently suffering, still hungover from the effects of Covid and now impacted by the government’s October budget.

How has the Labour Party’s October budget impacted the job market?

The October budget , which has been implemented since April 2025, increased the rate at which employers would have to pay national insurance premiums and that employers start paying NI from £5,000 per salary compared to the previous £9,100 per salary . 

The October Budget also implemented from April 2025 a rise in the National Minimum wage at double the rate of inflation.  

The industries reported (in a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves with companies including Tesco and Amazon) be most affected by the October Budget are the hospitality and retail industries, the industries with the most available part time jobs, which are the jobs that students in full or part time higher education are most likely to get on average (according to the York University Student Union).

Ash Flack ,18, a part-time Arts and Design Foundation year student from Cambridgeshire said that the inability to be hired: “Has mainly made me anxious for my peers as I know a lot of people who need a lot of hours to support their rent, food and bills however there are less hours now for people to access and more people requiring more hours” .

In an interview talking to the BBC in January, Next boss Lord Wolfson expressed that the changes made by the Labour government were being made too quickly in a way that negatively affected those in entry level jobs: “So the axe has fallen particularly hard on those entry-level, National Living Wage jobs, and that’s where the pain is going to be felt the most.” 

Entry-level, part-time jobs in the retail and hospitality sector are the most common jobs for people /students also in full or part time education, so this hit to their availability is another blow to a generation of students already amid an economic crisis. This is further impacted by the fact that 200,000 part time jobs have disappeared since 2016, according to an investigation by the European Data Journalism Network.

The hospitality industry is already in not only a deadlock but a decline. Last year in 2024, according to the UK’s latest Hospitality Market Monitor 4,078 venues closed across the UK, and since 2020 over one third of all nightclubs in the UK have closed.

So, any disruption to the already fragile industry has a large impact on the student population fighting for the fewer available jobs.  Susanna Millhouse, 19, full time biology student at York University, said: “The inability to get a job has made me worried for my own financial stability long term as the job industry post university in my sector is already worrying me and without any part-time job experience it might make my post-university life more difficult.”

In 2024 169,395 retail jobs disappeared completely from the market.  According to Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive at the British Retail Consortium:  “The number of retail jobs in 2024 was the lowest since the data began in 1996, despite total jobs in the economy continuing to rise.

“While this decline in retail jobs should be a concern to communities everywhere, worse could be yet to come. A recent survey of retail Finance Directors showed that half were planning to hire freezes or cutting jobs, both in head offices and stores across the UK.”