Forget university - get a McJob!

by CCCS on 17 May 2011  |  6 comments
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With student fees on the up, would your children be better off ditching university all together in favour of getting a job?

A newspaper headline caught our eye last week; the Evening Standard quoted the chief executive of McDonald’s, who said that kids would be better off getting a job with the burger chain rather than pay (or expect their parents to pay) hefty student tuition fees. McDonald’s even cited the numbers of their staff who gained qualifications while working for the chain.

According to the Guardian, average university tuition fees in 2012 will hit £8,600. Add to this the costs involved with actually going to university, including housing, food, and the social side (usually involving going to the student union for the consumption of alcohol).

All this could mean three years at university could end up costing upwards of £30,000 (student debt is predicted to reach £83,000 in exceptional circumstances).

In the light of these figures, let’s look at what leaving school at 16 and getting a foot in the door at McDonald’s would give the average school leaver.

McDonalds starting pay is £4.25 an hour at 16, even though the minimum wage for that age group is below this. Based on a 39-hour week this would give an income after tax and national insurance of approximately £8,223 per year, or £685 net per month.

At 18 wages would rise to £4.98 per hour. After tax and national insurance this would add up to a yearly wage of approximately £9,230, and again at 21 wages would rise again, to £6.08 per hour or possibly more if the staff member had been a good worker. This would be an annual net wage of £10,747.

The situation gets better: between the ages of 16 and 21, young people are more likely to be living at home where bills are cheaper than in student digs. The switched-on little McWorker might also want to look at the McDonald’s pension scheme, after all anything invested at 16 has a long time to increase in value before retirement.

While working at the McJob, staff members are encouraged to take advantage of the qualifications that McDonald’s offer. Or maybe they might like the cut and thrust of a fast-paced restaurant environment. 95% of McDonald’s store managers (often earning salaries of £45k+) started as junior workers.

By the time most of the McWorker’s peers have left school and started university, our McJobsworth has already had five years’ work experience and hopefully done things correctly and saved a little money for the future (or at least not got into problem debt). They’d have also paid some of the household costs, extra cash to boost the family budget.

Our mini McManager will have also gained valuable customer service experience and mixed with a range of other staff in many age groups (McDonald’s recruits the young and the old alike). It’s a pretty good combination.

This all sounds very rosy and paints a great picture (perhaps too rosy), but the true benefit of working a McJob for a long period of time might come in later.

An employer, when faced with taking on an entry-level employee might have to make this choice, faced with two excellent final candidates. Both 21, one is fresh out of university with a degree.

The other is an equally excellent candidate who has no degree but has spent five years working in a challenging customer-focused environment, and could have been promoted in that time as well as passing various lower-level job specific qualifications.

Who would you hire?

More importantly, for the long-term financial health of your child, which is the more likely to be in debt? Is a McJob bad for your son or daughter?

If you have a student in the family with money worries, you’re still carrying debts from university or didn’t save while working at McDonald’s (or anywhere else) you might need online debt advice counselling from CCCS.