Graduate employment in the city

Is the city the best place for our best and brightest mathematicians and economists ?

It is the year 2013 and bonuses are firmly back in the city. With them, incentives for bright and motivated individuals are back, with pay packets standing at multiples of the salaries offered in other industries such as engineering and medicine.

Concurrent to this, the city is beginning to become more and more quantitatively difficult market, replaced with a mathematically-able “quant “ who uses complicated algorithms to determine success. Maths plays a bigger role in the city than ever, with strong pHD level mathematical ability a pre-requisite for many jobs in the city.

As such, mathematics and economics graduates are being tempted into the city, lured by an image of glamour, prestige and high pay. Any student at a top UK university is almost guaranteed to have seen or have been inundated by offers for employment from top investment banks, many of whom going on to accept these same offers.

One has to question whether the abilities of these graduates could be employed better elsewhere. Does the city really contribute that much to us both as a society and as an economy? Whilst bankers are often in the highest tax band, banks and other large corporations have employed complex tax avoidance methods and, of course, have speculated wildly, precipitating the financial crisis, causing untold economic and social woe both nationally and globally.

Whilst speculation is a valid profit-generating activity for banks and other investors, we must be careful to regulate it so as to prevent another crisis. One has to question whether bright minds could be employed more creatively, and we must ensure that they are not employed destructively.