Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Occupy Wall Street, College and Jobs

One of the issues raised by the Occupy movement has been unemployment among college graduates, especially if combined with large levels of educational-related debt.


So, I thought it might be interesting to research the actual current unemployment level among college graduates, so as to have a firm idea of the magnitude of this problem.


It turns out that it may not be as much of a problem as some people might think.


According to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf), for persons 25 years and older, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for college graduates (including those with advanced degrees) as of December 2011 was only 4.1%.


[To put this in context, the unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma was 13.8%, for those with a high school diploma was 8.7% and for those with some college but without a bachelor's or higher degree was 7.7%.]


And in the last year or so, the unemployment rate for college (and above) graduates has continued a significant downward trend.  See the following chart, based on BLS data, from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (www.naceweb.org/s12072011/job_market_new_graduates/) through November:


Unemployment Among College Grads


So, the take-away may be that while unemployment is a very unfortunate condition for anyone, for those with college or other advanced degrees the problem may not be as bad as some people might think.

1 comment:

  1. "According to the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf), for persons 25 years and older, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for college graduates (including those with advanced degrees) as of December 2011 was only 4.1%."

    - How does 4.1% compare with numbers from 5, 10 and 20 years ago? Would be good to know if that is twice (or half) the unemployment rate as compared to years past.

    "And in the last year or so, the unemployment rate for college (and above) graduates has continued a significant downward trend. See the following chart, based on BLS data, from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (www.naceweb.org/s12072011/job_market_new_graduates/) through November:"

    - Following that link, I see that the description for the graph is "Unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree graduates (20 – 24 age group), September 2010 – November 2011 ", Which (confusingly) is from an article titled, "Unemployment Rate for New College Graduates Improving".
    "New" college graduates? So is the original article providing data for "new" grads, or all grads? Despite the description, I suspect it's for new grads, because the unemployment rate drops from 13.1% in July (after graduation) to 6.2% in November (when Joe Graduate decided to find a job after bumming around for a summer of post-college debauchery).

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