Most university students have part-time jobs to help with rent, food and leisure costs during their studies, along with the well-deserved sweet treats and vintage shop visits. They can also help save up for big goals, like getting a car or moving out of home – something most students are waiting desperately for! But with all the trouble that comes with balancing work and study, is having a part-time job even worth it?
THE JUGGLING ACT
HEPI reports that as of 2024, ‘students entitled to the maximum loan will now be almost £2000 worse off than if the loans had been increased in line with inflation since 2021’. To continue to afford the ever-expensive habit of living in the UK in 2025, ‘69%’ of students are now working part-time alongside university.
Unless our admin departments have blessed us with the perfect timetable, students are likely only available to work evenings or weekends. This limits most job options to two dreaded categories: retail (shudder) and hospitality (shudder again), where we must work while watching our customers spend more money in one visit than we earn in a whole month. Although they’re necessary in many cases, balancing these jobs with education becomes a challenge, with The National Union of Students finding that ‘34% of [students] who work say it has a somewhat negative impact on their studies’. Furthermore, ‘of those reporting a negative impact, tiredness, juggling commitments, and less time for studying are all reported’.
STRESSFUL CONDITIONS
Retail and hospitality jobs tend to be quite physically demanding, often with long hours spent standing up, which can be tiring and painful. The nature of these jobs is also intense, with busy periods like Christmas, bank holidays, sports events, film premiers, sale promotions and summer holidays creating hectic, busy periods that employees can rarely escape. These instances are made worse by the chronic understaffing that plagues the retail and hospitality industries.
The irrationally high expectations of higher management can mean harsh punishments for staff who don’t meet them. The constant customer-facing requirement for these jobs can also be a struggle, putting employees at the forefront of every complaint and tantrum customers throw at them, subjecting us to spit-spraying rants. With these experiences in mind, it’s no surprise that The Retail Trust report documents that ‘eight out of ten retail employees in the UK have experienced a deterioration in their well being due to the strains associated with working in stores’.
These stressful conditions can really impact the mental health of employees. Some of my worst workdays were during sales, during which customers or their children would smash perfumes, knock down displays, drop food and drinks everywhere (we don’t even sell food!) topple mannequins and throw items all over the floor. As soon as I finished tidying a section it would be destroyed within ten minutes, and at a certain point, it becomes easier to just watch and laugh as everything falls apart. Nevertheless, this total lack of care for the store and the staff can seriously affect morale and makes all our efforts to do any work feel utterly pointless.
LONG-TERM IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES
The ‘increasing aggression’ of customers is also important to consider, as new data from the Institute of Customer Service reveals that ‘nearly 4 in 10 (39%) UK customer service workers who have experienced abuse are contemplating leaving their jobs’. These experiences have a lasting impact on staff, leaving ‘1 in 4 of these workers taking time off as a result’.
I started working in retail part-time at sixteen and have seen and experienced abuse from customers and mistreatment from management ever since I started. Some memories have stuck with me, like when at sixteen, a customer shouted at me and tried to force me to apologise because they accused me of looking in their bag while scanning their items. Or when I informed another customer about a store policy and in return, they tried to get me fired for my ‘attitude’ – whatever that means. It seems that young working students cannot be taken seriously or stand up for ourselves without it being interpreted as disrespectful, deterring us from speaking up against poor treatment from customers.
I’ve even experienced customers trying to pry into my personal life and still continue to harass me when I tell them I’m not interested or that I have a boyfriend. This is a workplace issue that especially affects young female students and means we tend to avoid entering jobs where this behaviour is common like pubs, bars, sporting events and clubs. The statistics provide a disappointing confirmation of the severity of this issue, as Unite the Union and USDAW surveys found that ‘90%’ of hospitality workers and ‘70%’ of women working in retail had experienced sexual harassment at work.
This unnecessary physical and mental stress of part-time jobs, coupled with the time it takes away from studying, means that students might want to think twice about applying for one for as long as possible. For those of us who are already in the thick of it, we’ll just have to wait until we can swap shop floors for office spaces and – if we dare to dream – the paradise of working from home.