Posted on 06/28/2013 1:06:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s tough being a young worker in today’s difficult job market. But if your parents tell you it was even tougher when they were your age, don’t roll your eyes and write them off. They might just be right.
A common predicament among recent college grads is the difficulty finding professional work that matches their qualifications. Some hold out and refuse to take a job for which they’re overqualified, which is why the unemployment rate for recent grads, at about 6%, is higher than the rate for college grads as a whole, which is only about 4%.
A bigger problem, however, is underemployment. Many new diploma holders need a paycheck, no matter how small, so they take jobs that don’t require a college degree, such as retail clerk, waiter, barista, or medical technician. Nearly 45% of college students who graduated during the last five years count as underemployed in this manner, according to new data compiled by economists at the New York Federal Reserve.
That sounds high—but it was even higher during the mid-1990s, when the economy was also recovering from a recession. Back then, the underemployment rate among recent college grads was nearly 50 percent, or a few points higher than it is now. That’s peculiar because the 1990-1991 recession was mild, whereas the 2007-2009 recession we’re still recovering from was severe. By most other economic measures, the recent recession was the worst since the 1930s.
There was nothing unusual about the economy in the 1990s that punished college grads. In fact, it was typical back then for recent grads to toil beneath their standing, as it were, before finding better work and starting a career. “It’s not unusual for a significant share of college grads to be working in a job that doesn't require a degree,”
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Most come right out of college with nothing but a liberal education and cannot survive. Most are useless because of attitude in the real working world.
Getting a philosophy degree in the Carter years didn’t seem to hurt me much.
A common predicament among recent college grads is the difficulty finding professional work that matches their qualifications.
I’m an old gal who has been around the private sector all my life. My experience is that most recent college grads are not qualified for much of anything until they get some work experience under their belt and prove themselves in more areas than the area they studied.
Employers often look for other qualities in individuals, qualities that can make or break a company. Often it’s not your smarts but other traits that count.
We have thousands of smart people running our country and look at the mess.
Lack of competition?
I had a theory that someone with a new college degree could step into a job that used to be given to someone who had worked his or her way up in the company. Two things happened:
1) The college grads in those positions were younger than those who worked their way up to those positions and stayed in those positions longer, so openings are less frequent.
2) There are more philosophy graduates than there were 30+ years ago.
My oldest son decided to major in Computer Science. Hard worker, but doesn’t have the patience or willingness to sacrifice the time to actually go to school. He’s taken some CS courses (essentially 1 year of college), now working full-time at 50k doing programming. Wish he would finish - fear his growth potential will be limited.
Nah, I just never tried to get a job in it. Over the years I’ve owned a bike shop, been a prison warden, and worked in nuclear weapons and radiation effects.
I have a degree in Social Work. I am pretty employable, I just am not doing social work as it doesn’t pay as good as what I am doing now.
If by this statement you are suggesting that students enroll in an engineering major program at college, bear in mind what I read last year on FR.
Someone posted an observation by the head of a college's engineering department that maybe 15 percent of that university's students were capable of handling the mathematics and physics required to be successful in completing an engineering degree.
Keep that in mind when you make such recommendations. Not everyone can become an engineer, a physician, or an accountant.
That is only 1/2 the problem.
Too many parents send their little darlings off to the University having never worked at a real job in their entire lives.
To be offered a decent position a rational employer wants to see a work history to go witb the academics. Lets be honest here: not getting out in the workplace to develope a work ethic before age 21 is every bit as much a recipe for mediocrity as not learning a language before age 21 or not learning a competative sport before age 21.
Junior comes out with a newly minted sheepskin, but until we see if his abilities to show up on time and accomplish an assigned task and take initiative matches whatever GPA he had he isn’t worth much.
My son who just finished his feshman year of college. He filled out over 20 applications for summer work and only got 2 interviews. 1 at subway and 1 at church. Subway said he wasn’t qualified because he didn’t have experience.
He was an honor grad frim a top private high school. He had very high ACT and an AP scholar. He’s an economics major at Texas A&M with good grades.
Thank goodness a positioned opened up at my husband’s social media start up company, and my son is doing work for them. My husband says my son is dong great, and they are hoping he can continue working for them while he’s at college.
I respect the under-employed far more than the “I can’t find the perfect job at high pay so I’ll stay at home” type. Working at Half Price Books or Subway makes you productive and a taxpayer, while living at home crying about the unfairness of the world hurts everyone.
It’s tough for a young person to enter the job market when old people aren’t able to retire. The new system seems to be to take your retirement in your twenties and thirties and then work until you’re in your nineties.
>>Later, the daughter divorced this guy because he was planning on being a student for the rest of his life and she’d decided to move on. She remarried somebody with a job and they’ve been very happy and had children.
I love a story with a happy ending.
< thumbs up!>
I would argue that many of those liberal degrees make you less suitable for employment when compared to those without. At least those without haven’t been fully brainwashed into the Leftist mindset, are less likely to be the source of some sort of lawsuit, etc.
It is also the dysfunctional attitudes about work and life. The kids often get taught wrong things about more than politics. But perhaps this is just a different way of trying to say the same thing. They are rendered less than useless. You’re better off not hiring many of them regardless of wage rates. Your business will work better not having them around. Even for free
It is also the dysfunctional attitudes about work and life. The kids often get taught wrong things about more than politics. But perhaps this is just a different way of trying to say the same thing. They are rendered less than useless. You’re better off not hiring many of them regardless of wage rates. Your business will work better not having them around. Even for free
Exactly, we see this similarly. Unless there is strong evidence they have overcome the conditioning that is part and parcel of this class of college degrees, you are better off without.
At the very least have him look at certification courses. If he works in Microsoft technologies there are loads and loads of class called MCTS series. Your buy the book and study on your own then take the test. Books and tests for each level run about $250-$350. There are come classes you can attend also if that is your bag.
I am sure there are the same offerings in other technologies.
The problem is that companies like Subway and Half-Price Books know that people with degrees will ditch their jobs as soon as something better comes along and, thus, do not hire them in the first place....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.