<p>"For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school diploma or less.</p>
<p>Out of 9 million unemployed in April, 4.7 million had gone to college or graduated and 4.3 million had not, seasonally adjusted Labor Department data show.</p>
<p>That's a swing of more than 2 million since the start of 1992, early in another jobless recovery, when 4.1 million who hadn't gone to college were jobless vs. 2.3 million jobless who had gone.</p>
<p>Mostly, this dramatic shift reflects broad demographic forces. A greater share of the population has attended college, at least for a time. Meanwhile, older Americans who were less likely to pursue higher education are exiting the work force." ...</p>
<p>There seems to be the usual mistake of equating “some college” with “college dropout”, even though “some college” could mean taking a few specific pre-professional skills courses at the local community college without the intention of getting an associates degree or transferring to complete a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>“New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College…” - where the end of this sentence? Like “…majoring in such and such and minoring in such and such”. there are known shortages in certain proffessions…that “fine arts” and similar majors cannot fullfill. </p>
<p>“Meanwhile, older Americans who were less likely to pursue higher education are exiting the work force.” - and where the ending of this? In what numbers? There are very many who have no plans to retire whatsoever, and others who retired and went back to fill low paying “entry” positions, taking jobs from “summer” HS and college kids. Great shift in more recent years. I have no plans to retire. Many around me approaching retirement age in my department are planning to work until we are kicked out. I, personally, do not want to choose my doc. based on the fact if he takes Medicare or not…and there is nothing else to do anyway. jobs became a major entertainment for those of us who are not glued to their cell phones 100% of the time, a.k.a my generation.</p>
<p>I was at the doctor yesterday and he has trouble getting good medical staff (the people who give shots and take vital signs, etc.) and getting good nurses. I am losing a terrific executive assistant. Her husband was just offered his dream job in DC. So, she’s moving with a heavy heart (she’d moved here a few months ago because she she wanted to be close to her family). My operations manager has screened a lot of mediocre resumes. So, apparently there are lot of people without jobs, but they somehow don’t match the jobs that are there very well.</p>
<p>That’s what employers are saying in my state too - skills mismatch for jobs. In our case, employers want people with some technical skills - they don’t need managers, people with degrees, etc. but want people that can work in high-tech manufacturing jobs.</p>
<p>There’s also demand for high-skilled professional jobs but employers want the perfect candidate. Or someone that is connected.</p>
<p>Reading the thread’s title, I thought, “Oh whew! Even though this refers to just a statistic, I’m relieved to know my son is not the only one.” I’m so tired of hearing all my friends tell me how successful their kids are.</p>
<p>BCEagle, I can only wish! It’s been a 2-year journey so far. My too-young-for-his-age son is slowly maturing, but he isn’t there yet. He’s more like a 15-y/o. My goals certainly have changed since this process began. Maybe that’s true for everyone, but I’d be happy if he could just find an “almost” f/t, min wage job. Why is this so hard?</p>
<p>It’s sheer numbers. We’re creating 120K jobs per month. We need 107K jobs per month just to absorb population growth. The BLS unemployment number is 12.5 million. These are people actively looking for work. There are 7.9 million people working part-time that want full-time jobs. There are another 2.4 million people in the discouraged category. These people want to work but have only marginally looked for work in the last 12 months. So you have a lot of people that want to work and a relatively small number of jobs absorbing those that are looking. There are also wide mismatches in skills that people have and skills that employers want though those with college degrees should have an advantage there.</p>
<p>Something that I saw last year is employers getting inundated with resumes when they post job openings. It takes time to sort through the resumes and this may have slowed down the hiring process too.</p>
<p>My perspective is that you have to be optimistic, do something productive (grad school if it’s a reasonable option), and go out there and try - like a salesperson that hears no many, many times before making a sale.</p>
<p>Something to note is that the private sector has been creating jobs at a faster rate than the overall net job creation rate, but the private sector net job creation has been “canceled out” by the net job destruction in the government (mostly state and local) sector.</p>
<p>So the job market may be a more difficult place for someone looking for jobs that are mostly found in the government (especially state and local) sector.</p>
<p>Very interesting. Deals with the “war against youth” in how Republicans, Democrats, baby boobers, education (tuition, financial aid programs, tenurred professors, the world of academia), and corporations have contributed. </p>
<p>It also discusses how much of world has similar problems. And how the young generation has already started to be defined by their unemployment all over the world. </p>
<p>Here is one quote:</p>
<p>“Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human potential has been consistently growing, generating greater material wealth, more education, wider opportunities — a vast and glorious liberation of human potential. In all that time, everyone, even followers of the most corrupt or most evil of ideologies, believed they were working for a better tomorrow. Not now. The angel of progress has suddenly vanished from the scene. Or rather, the angel of progress has been sent away.” </p>
<p>Some study said that we are the first generation that will have a lower standard of living than our parents. And it is sort of true. We all have hope that things will get somewhat better (in the short-term), but long-term it appears we are on the decline.</p>
<p>Warning: Article is political but appears to bash both parties equally (IMO).</p>
<p>Mismatch berween college graduates and jobs was long coming, as HS does not prepare kids sufficiently for college. Even the top students often seek remedial cources / tutoring services,…etc. if they decide on engineering and some other math/science oriented majors, with many falling out of their originally intended track. I have taken summer class few years ago while working. At the end there were 3 people left in a class, one was me. Class was one of the entry level classes in my field - CS. I had no problem because of my experience and prof. asked me to assist with one student while he took care of another. We had to bring thier assignment to the point of passing the class. The situation was pitiful, kids had no clue and it was at the end of session when they should be having some kind of idea as they were the only ones left in class, the others dropped it. Prof. indicated that in last decade or so, the kids who come to college lack significantly in ability to apply analytical/logical thinking process.
Most immigrants are not impressed with k-12 in the USA. It has reached the point when there is complete disregard to developing amalytical skills. k -12 academic program is primarly busy work, filling numerous papers. While level of teaching English is great and those who do assignements on a regular basis, will obtain great communication skills, English is not the only subject that requires attention. All Math and science classes that should aim primarily at developing analytical skills and logical thinking are insufficient. They are way too short and not presented in correct way, no matter what HS your kids went. All top private schools still have to follow the same program or they will not be certified. This is the reason why some immigrant communities have their own schools to fill the gaps in math and sciences.
Without change in K-12 and number of immigrants going back to China and India, mismatch will continue.</p>
<p>I think the total amount of people with some sort of college degree (bachelor’s, associate’s, or professional) is about 40%. And considering that a lot of people drop out of college, I think that most Americans in general have had some college experience. And I think about 75% of people are going to college now and considering that the young are more likely to be unemployed, this figure shouldn’t be surprising at all.</p>
<p>^While many college educated are unemployed, there are many fields that are struggling to find gualified working force. There is definite mismatch.</p>
<p>I’m failing to see why this is newsworthy. Those who attend college, but drop out tend to not show the traits associated with successful employment (except, perhaps, for those with money issues). Is it any great surprise that they have higher unemployment.</p>
<p>To sum it up:</p>
<p>No college = 7.7% (and many probably had a job lined up after graduation from high school)</p>
<p>2 year degree = 6.2%</p>
<p>4 year degree = 4%</p>
<p>College dropouts = 8%</p>
<p>No surprises here and no plans to suddenly start telling capable kids to skip college.</p>
<p>I am reading a lot about ‘skills mismatch’, and fields that cannot find qualified candidates. I personally can think of only two such fields - Nursing and software engineering, and even there the need seems to be filling pretty fast. People mention high tech manufacturing jobs, but are those jobs really there? At least where I live, I do not think there is any manufacturing at all, high tech or low tech, and even if there is some, they most certainly are not hiring on scale.</p>
<p>There are high-tech manufacturing jobs in NH. I can see demand for accountants given all of the regulation coming down the road (taxation, healthcare, banking). I can see demand for bioinformatics (IS + biology + IT + software engineering).</p>
<p>We (mid-Atlantic states) are seeing continued demand for accountants as well as expansion of post-bac programs that accept liberal arts majors with other degress who want to take enough accounting courses to sit for the CPA exam. </p>
<p>I have to wonder how quickly supply will outstrip demand at this point, and whether grads with undergrad accounting degrees will be preferred over grads who spent their undergrad years honing other skills.</p>