Please switch off the lights on your way out

The government is to pay for graduates struggling to get a job to go on trips abroad, The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has confirmed. It said the scheme will be launched with expedition company Raleigh International next week. It will pay for 500 young people under the age of 24 to travel to places such as Costa Rica and India to take part in projects such as building schools.

Well, the Indians must be killing themselves over that. After trying for years to build up a cadre of educated young people to challenge the rest of the world, they now know that they have won because the British are sending them their graduates to work for free because there are no jobs for graduates in the UK.

Graduates from 2008 with job offers have found that large employers such as the big accountancy practices are deferring their start dates and many have not started their jobs yet. The 2009 crop of graduates are mostly without jobs, with a few clutching at pointless internships, and the 2010 graduates starting to book interviews are likely to be similarly disappointed.

Last month Universities Minister David Lammy told the BBC: "If you get an internship, you are with a company acquiring skills that are attractive on a CV - and indeed, the company that you do it with might take you on. Then beyond that, it's right to say that we live in a global market place, opportunities abroad can add to your skills and sometimes your language skills. And volunteering is always something that's attractive to employers."

So there you go kids: after 17 or eighteen years of education, even if you have graduated from one of the top universities, the best you can expect in the UK is an internship, working for free or taking a government sponsored gap year to keep you out of the dole queue statistics.

But if you want a real job, emigrate.