Underemployed? If you are a college graduate who is not so great at reading and writing, maybe waiting on tables IS the right job for you.
I’m guessing these are mostly liberal arts majors.
Obama putting in work!!!
I did it for 35 years. Nothing new.
And I was quite happy with what I did.
And another large percentage cannot find jobs, even with degrees in science and engineering.
Education is much more than just going to college because in America we have a huge amount of educated fools thanks to LIEberal, leftist indoctrination’s. Claiming to be smart but definitely not wise.
Fewer than 50% of recent college graduates are educated to BEGIN to learn how do anything useful.
And, without experience and training, NONE are qualified to do anything at all.
Everyone we know who was trained in a skilled trade (plumber, electrician) is now making six figures per. Happy men and women. Maybe the jobs don’t have that liberal cachet, but the families are doing well.
Just sayin’.
“And many of the others are jobs that don’t require a college degree to perform, the employers just use it as a sorting mechanism (of dubious value IMO). “
IMO Taleo and lazy HR departments are the blame. I ask for every resume unfiltered. I don’t care if 1000 people send me resumes. My screening approach is easy. No one from Ivy League schools. No one with liberal degrees. I take certification and experience first, experience second and companies worked for prior who I can contact third.
Why do I do this? Because I don’t have a degree and got sick and tired of losing jobs to Womyns and black studies majors who had no business getting interviews when I was fully qualified for the position.
It will be valuable, that is, unless you graduated with a worthless degree.
After college I worked for a print company, assembling boxes, for several months before finding a job that required a degree. I worked hard and received a good recommendation from my supervisor which led to that next job.
What? You mean they can’t get jobs that use their Gender Studies degrees?
Every year at this time the colleges and universities pour out thousands of newly minted diploma holders. That there are no jobs awaiting them should be no surprise. A man or woman entering into the job market at 23-25 years of age will still be there 30 years later. The jobs that they have won’t be opening up until they retire, go to prison or die.....................................
I'm going to guess that's a significant portion.
Next, if you consider how traditional employment works, how many immediately go from college graduation into a mid to high level job?
That was few and far between after I left college, many would pick up a lower level job in a company they wanted to advance into. Graduate engineers would pick up even shipping or clerical jobs at an engineering firm as the first step in their career. I, like a few of my peers, worked through college and left with no debt.
My father started as a salesman for a radio station before advancing into his desired position of being a radio disk jockey. Of course, he worked through college to pay for it as well.
A friend's son just exited college with an engineering degree. He also is leaving with no student loans, as he enjoyed a half scholarship, had some savings, and worked part time. He also would fall under this survey as being ‘chronically underemployed’ as he's working as a runner in an architectural firm. I don't expect him to stay in that position for very long; his work is already award winning.
Wouldn't the real fantasy be someone walking out of college and immediately going into a position of responsibility?
As the article points out, in an off-hand way, the real problem is former students who haven't been working, who got loans to pay for college and for them to not work, and those bills are starting to come due. And I'm going to bet that likely 50% have no job at all after 6 months when that first bill arrives, because ‘they haven't found a good enough job yet.’
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A national scandal if there ever was one. But the colleges are mostly liberal institutions so the sympathetic media sweeps the outrageous price gouging under the rug.
What needs to happen is someone with a Basket Weaving degree should combine it with an MBA. Once they figure out how to market millions of baskets, with a basket in every home, they’ve got it made.
The worst thing I heard is that some tech companies are advertising for interns among new graduates and using them to assist H-1B hires who may be weak on English and/or the subject. There is no chance for the graduate to get a job (because they would not work for peanuts) and they are traded for the next year's crop of graduates.
My grandfather was a professor at Notre Dame and he once mentioned to me “The purpose of a Liberal Arts Education is to improve the quality of your life and to make you a better person.” It wasn’t meant to find you a job. That’s what a vocational or a professional school is for. Of course, things have changed since my grandfather taught many, many decades ago.