Half of Recent College Grands Under/Un-employed

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Half of Recent College Grands Under/Un-employed

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2012 Jul 23, 6:43pm 33,617 views 85 comments

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/04/half_of_recent_college_grads_u.html

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.
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Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor's degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. "Simply put, we're failing kids coming out of college," he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. "We're going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market, otherwise college debt will grow."
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In the last year, they were more likely to be employed as waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined (100,000 versus 90,000). There were more working in office-related jobs such as receptionist or payroll clerk than in all computer professional jobs (163,000 versus 100,000). More also were employed as cashiers, retail clerks and customer representatives than engineers (125,000 versus 80,000).

According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position -- teachers, college professors and accountants. Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers.

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely.
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Any job gains are going mostly to workers at the top and bottom of the wage scale, at the expense of middle-income jobs commonly held by bachelor's degree holders. By some studies, up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to return in a more high-tech age.
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After earning a biology degree last May, the only job he could find was as a construction worker for five months before he quit to focus on finding a job in his academic field. He applied for positions in laboratories but was told they were looking for people with specialized certifications.

"I thought that me having a biology degree was a gold ticket for me getting into places, but every other job wants you to have previous history in the field," he said. Edwards, who has about $5,500 in student debt, recently met with a career counselor at Middle Tennessee State University. The counselor's main advice: Pursue further education.

"Everyone is always telling you, 'Go to college,'" Edwards said. "But when you graduate, it's kind of an empty cliff."

A pretty good article for the most part, not too much pro status quo fluff. One of the things it downplays though is the fact that even for people with a STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) degree things are getting pretty tough right now. Paid internships are vanishing rapidly to be replaced by neo-slavery unpaid internships which do little to educate or advance employees, they mostly end up doing the bottom rung work that normally OJT's would be doing, only for free.

Which of course is driving down wages...just like I expected years ago. This will only get worse as time goes on.

If you follow Derek Lowe's blog he talks about this often, though from a bio-tech perspective. http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/07/09/scientist_shortage_the_media_starts_to_catch_on.php

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81 mdovell 2012 Jul 26, 2:57am

Rin says

So I don't exactly see this trend ending anytime soon as the former India Inc will be replaced by other nations which want to cross the digital divide.

Pretty much. That reminds me of a theory that major economies have boomed and flatted going from east to west. France, UK, USA..even USA domestically as industry moved to the west, Japan, China, India...if it wasn't for sanctions I'd argue that Iran would boom..probably will once they are taken off.Dan8267 says

Good in theory, but not applicable in the real world. "Paying your dues" does not get you anywhere. Companies today look at tech workers as day laborers. They want a PHP guy, a JQuery guy, and a .NET guy for three months. Then they want to cut payroll.

Years ago I had a class for some certificate thing but it turned out to be a sham school. The professor (I don't think he had a license let alone a degree) argued the opposite in that you could pretty much work for a few hours and act like it was a full days work..that was right before the dot com bubble burst though.

It used to be that part time jobs were more lower ended skills. Now it's everywhere. I just saw an ad looking for a degree and experience but it's only 19 hours a week for a one year term. I have also see jobs described as salary for 25 hours a week...so anything beyond that 25 hours they get for free. Heck reminds me also of a friend of my father who can weld stainless steel. He makes $75/hr...but the place would only need him for four hours a week!

It used to be that a 40 hour week was expected. Now with efficiencies that is no longer the case.Dan8267 says

Companies do not long term employee tech workers, so they don't care how many times you've payed your dues taking low wages for experience. And experience that is over five years old is nearly worthless anyway. Over ten and it's completely worthless.

Maybe. I think it is more marginal than anything else. I would say if a job as little variance then the worse experience looks. If it's totally open then it is more valued. In other words lets say a job asks for 10 years experience or more. You have three applying. One has nine, one has ten and one has eleven. On the surface who has 11 should be picked. But how much more is that extra year really worth? On the other side how much less is the one with nine years really worth?

A metric should be established as to why the standards are what they are. Otherwise it throws it all in the air. It could be a degree, level of experience, a certificate etc. I once worked in an office where my coworkers were hired because they had office experience. The company MEANT MS Office or any other office suite. They (mid 60's and older) thought it was just general office experience. These women went back to the workforce after a few decades when their husbands lost their jobs. So they knew how to type and that's about it. I tried to train them but after three months of trying to show cut, copy, paste, drag (basic GUI functions) I had to cut them off. One was fired for doing half the work of others. The other two finally learned.

Of course there is also the opposite of this. I applied once to a company that has their own programming language. Somewhat like C but not that much. Unlike MIcrosoft with C# this is REALLY closed. There are no programming books for anyone to buy, no guides online and you cannot buy it to use it at home. So by asking for experience with it that assures them it is mostly just internal employees. The company is known for paying really low rates (30-40k) for programmers. The benefits are sky high though and that kinda traps people especially if they decide to have children. You cannot afford to leave and yet you probably have the best healthcare plan in the state for free for you and your family.

tts 2012 Jul 26, 8:55am

CaptainShuddup says

If you're looking for rewards for the fruits of your labor, then you're missing the whole point of the effort.

That is the whole point of working FYI for most everyone, they're looking for "rewards" in the form of better pay, and that isn't an unreasonable request at all.

We don't have a society or economy where learning/doing stuff for free is really practical or sensible for most of the population unfortunately, so they cannot afford to settle for some hand-wavy form of "satisfaction" either.

JodyChunder 2012 Jul 26, 10:16am

Most children would be better off getting they butts in which ever arm of the military that will take them and not just for the GI Bill. I was a damn mess afore I joined up. Cutting tile during the days and whoring and drinking Rodrigo Rum by the gallon jug. EVery night!! It was A stint as Bosun's mate what knocked my dumbass into shape. It still is the best education out there I think.

All nine of my boys avoided military service and a few went to school and even though I love them they are all candy asses. One boy I know actually uses hand lotion!! None of them knows how to hustle like old dad.

zzyzzx 2012 Jul 27, 12:31am

JodyChunder says

One boy I know actually uses hand lotion!

Obligatory:

FortWayne 2012 Jul 27, 12:41am

This nation hires more Chinese, Indians, and Mexicans than Americans. Who would hire an American when there is cheap labor everywhere?

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Half of Recent College Grands Under/Un-employed

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