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Students in full time education are being encouraged to find part time jobs while they are studying in order to boost their future career prospects.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that the number of students (aged 16 to 24) who take on part time work while studying has dropped by 8 per cent since 2008. The number of 16 and 17 year olds who have a part time job has decreased by an even larger percentage according to the ONS research.

There are now only just over 1 in 4 students at college or university who are holding down some form of part time work, meaning that three quarters of current students are not picking up work experience to enhance their CVs. To put that in perspective, in the Netherlands, 6 in 10 students take on part time jobs while they are studying.

Spencer Thompson, an economic analyst for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), said that while the tradition of young people taking on Saturday work and other part time jobs wasn’t completely dead, it has fallen by over 15 per cent in the last 15 years.

“This matters because experience of paid work during study has been shown to help young people adjust to the demands and expectations of the workplace, boosting their employment chances after leaving education,” said Mr Thompson.

NUS President, Toni Pearce, blamed a culture of success expectation putting pressure on students to concentrate on studies rather than work experience.

Ms Pearce, who never went to university and underperformed in her first attempt at her A’ Levels said: “There's a huge weight of expectation placed on students in this generation. It's a generation of students who've been let down not just by changes in the education system, things like the Education Maintenance Allowance but also changes to the higher education system.”

The NUS President also said that there were not enough quality part time job opportunities for students in full time education.

The ONS figures for the wider jobs market revealed that the overall number of people working in part time jobs had risen by 100,000 to almost nine million since last September. There are also 30,000 more people in full time jobs - taking the total number of people in full time employment to almost eighteen and a half million.

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