Business students, or kylterit in Finnish, have traditionally found summer employment quite easily. In the summer of 2023, as many as 91 percent of them had some form of summer job.

However, last spring, the summer job market took a clear turn for the worse. In May, we reported that business students felt that obtaining a summer job in 2024 was much more difficult than usual. 1 300 students responded to Ekonomit’s survey on the matter in Spring: 80% of them stated that securing a summer job was tougher than in 2023.

So, how did the summer actually go? Fresh results from the business students’ summer job survey show that the situation was indeed worse than previous summers.

The number of unsuccessful applicants more than doubled

This past summer was particularly poor when it came to finding a job: the number of unsuccessful job seekers more than doubled. Ten percent of kylterit applied for jobs but were unable to find employment. Last year, that figure was just four percent.

Fifty-three percent of business students managed to secure full-time summer jobs. The previous summer, this number was 65 percent.

In total, 83 percent of business students landed some kind of summer job. This is a noticeable drop compared to last year’s 91 percent.

The biggest challenges kylterit faced during their job search were standing out from the crowd and securing an interview.

Making the most of the summer

For students, summer jobs are an important way to gain work experience and earn money to supplement their income during the academic year. A poor summer job situation is disappointing for many reasons and can be stressful.

Lotta Pennala, special advisor in education policy, hopes that despite the challenging financial situation, students were able to make the most of the summer or focus on resting.

“Many universities offer a few summer courses, so students can use the time to advance their studies. On the other hand, studying is often pretty intense, so it’s not a bad idea to take it a bit easier during the summer, if possible,” says Pennala.

Sources:

Business Students’ Summer Jobs Survey 2023: 1,222 respondents
Business Students’ Summer Jobs Survey 2024: 1,464 respondents