‘People in jobs forget how demoralising it can be’

Rebecca Lassen, from Edinburgh, has struggled to find meaningful employment since completing a degree, in 2009, in English Language at Glasgow University.

She will soon find herself unemployed again when a temporary admin job at FETA, the transport authority that runs the Forth Road Bridge, ends.

“There’s a degree of resentment that sets in after a while,” she said. “It can be really frustrating looking for work, and people who are in jobs forget how demoralising it can be – it really affects your confidence.”

Ms Lassen estimates she has applied for “a couple of hundred” admin jobs after failing to find work in her preferred career of copywriting.

She now hopes to go back to university to take a course to help her train to become a speech therapist.

“I don’t regret going to university, but I wish I had been warned about the perils of doing an English degree. They should have said ‘put down the Ucas form and go and be an engineer’.”

CHRIS MARSHALL