
U.S Unemployment By Education Level - shrikant
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm
======
bengebre
Here's the unemployment rate data by education level in chart form:

<http://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/demographics/>

It's interesting to observe the structural nature of these series. At no time
(in the visible history of the chart) does the unemployment rate of a higher
education level exceed the unemployment rate of a lower education level.
Through recession, recovery and expansion, education looks to be a verifiably
sound strategy for increasing your employment prospects.

Also worth noting (from the original link) is that the labor participation
rate (employed + active job seekers as a fraction of the population) is higher
as education levels increase. You're more likely to be working or looking for
work the more education you have. Lower education levels have greater rates of
people not working and not looking for work.

~~~
jeffdavis
"Through recession, recovery and expansion, education looks to be a verifiably
sound strategy for increasing your employment prospects."

That assumes a causal relationship. The chart only shows correlation.

~~~
orijing
This is the oldest, yet often useless, criticism in the world. Statisticians
know that when they are observing correlations they don't have statistical
evidence for causation. That requires you to take a step back, decide what
other variables could cause something, and test for that.

But here it's more than some vacuous claim to correlation.

Do you get unemployed as a BA first, or do you get your BA?

Econometrics is all about identifying causation in correlations in natural
data (i.e. you can't run scientific experiments on people's lives, like
telling random sample of people to go to college and others to not). Here, you
just need intuition to realize that one thing consistently is a prerequisite
to another, to realize that it's not just some statistical garbage.

There are three possible models to explain the correlation:

1\. Something influences both one's propensity to get more education (E) and
not get laid off (L).

2\. One's education determines one's propensity to not get laid off

3\. One's propensity to not get laid off influences one's education. This is
nonsense.

In a Bayesian network, you can visualize 1. as features f0,...fi (say race,
parents' income, etc) influencing both (E) and (L), with (E) also influencing
(L) directly. 2. would be a set of features f0,...,fi influencing (E) but not
(L), with (E) directly influencing (L).

So to conclude, "This chart only shows correlation" is a useless comment to
make unless accompanied by an analysis of the possible probabilistic models
that the evidence supports.

~~~
smokeyj
> "This chart only shows correlation" is a useless comment to make unless
> accompanied by an analysis of the possible probabilistic models

Correlation implies causality until proven otherwise? Do you work for the
government?

> Statisticians know that when they are observing correlations they don't have
> statistical evidence for causation.

Scientifically inspired voodoo is still voodoo. Say those with higher
education have lower employment, you still don't know why. These people could
be wealthier than the rest and have better opportunities in life REGARDLESS of
their "education" (as one example). The macro-economist would then cite this
data point is proof for needing more spending in higher-education, when in
reality, this may not be the case.

~~~
orijing
_Correlation implies causality until proven otherwise?_

Where did I say that? I said that a comment like "this chart only shows
correlation" is as useful as "The sky is blue." The sky is probably blue.

 _Scientifically inspired voodoo is still voodoo. Say those with higher
education have lower employment, you still don't know why. These people could
be wealthier than the rest and have better opportunities in life REGARDLESS of
their "education" (as one example)._

Please refer to the models that such data could support (my previous post).
The joint influence of other variables like f0,...,fi is certainly discussed.

 _The macro-economist would then cite this data point is proof for needing
more spending in higher-education, when in reality, this may not be the case._

Please refrain from judging a profession unless it is one that you are
familiar with. I mentioned econometrics, which is a specialized form of
statistics that focuses primarily on extracting information from observational
data.

~~~
smokeyj
You claimed OP had no right in claiming causality could not be established
unless an opposing data-set was present. Who says this data has to be present?
Are econometrics infallible?

You're trying to analyze the human motivation for action in hopes of altering
future action, all inside a vacuum void of real-life tests. You claim this
type of empirical knowledge is impossible to attain, "(i.e. you can't run
scientific experiments on people's lives, like telling random sample of people
to go to college and others to not).", but I would disagree.

Companies go to great length to mine data about their customers and their
behaviors, with the opportunity to run a-b tests and isolate causal
relationships. We should should recognize econometrics for what it is, and
that is a theoretical science, and that anyone has the right to question the
integrity of claimed causal relationships.

------
tnorthcutt
I find it frustrating that those with an associate degree are counted with
"some college". I'd be willing to bet the numbers are much better for people
who completed an associate degree than for those who failed/dropped out of
college.

------
bendmorris
It's too bad they stop with Bachelor's - does the trend continue for people
with graduate degrees?

~~~
city41
Or does it get worse? Do they get written off as "over qualified"?

~~~
al05
I.e The boss is feeling threatened excuse.

~~~
mgcross
Or too much of a "flight risk" when a higher paying position elsewhere arises,
wasting the employer's investment in training.

------
tokenadult
A story submitted in the last day or so

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2522135>

seems not to have had much discussion, perhaps because the submitter retitled
the story, but the submitted story has a lot of good discussion on the value
(or not) of attending college, and is worth thinking about in connection with
the statistics submitted here.

------
Duff
Not surprising. Decent jobs where a lack of high school or college education
is acceptable don't really exist anymore, and we use the checkmark of high
school/no high school or college/no college as a screening device.

I saw a posting for my local city's parks department for a person who
basically mows grass. Education requirements? High school diploma, associates
degree preferred.

The correlation/causation issue is that we assume that no jobs for folks out
of high school equates to no "low skill" jobs.

~~~
skidooer
It seems to me that the real reason is that the attributes one posses to drive
them through college are also valuable attributes in business success.

Someone who has no interest in working hard to attain good grades in high
school and therefore does not go to college is, generally speaking, someone
who has no interest in working hard to get a good job. However, if you took
one of those employed college grads and stripped them of their degree, I think
we would find their success in business would remain unchanged. It is the
person, not the degree, that leads to employment.

Ultimately, we simply do not have enough information to reach any conclusions
from the data.

~~~
Symmetry
I really do wish we could find a way that was cheaper than college for what
is, in these cases, essentially a personality/intelligence test.

~~~
m-photonic
Employers used to give out aptitude tests all the time, prior to the rise of
disparate impact lawsuits. Who knows how much better we could have gotten at
testing these sorts of things if colleges hadn't essentially been granted a
monopoly on employment psychometrics.

------
russell
Well, it sure sucks to be a high-school dropout.

But the situation is much worse than the statistics show. They dont count
people who are too discouraged to look for work, those who would take a job if
one were realistically available. Also not counted are those who are working
fewer hours than they want. Typically the unemployment statistics
underestimate by a third. I surmise, but havent dug into it, that the under-
counting is correlated with education: unemployment is probably double the BLS
number for the dropouts. And for those under 25, it is over 50%.

Apologies for the lack ok citations.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
You can see some of that in the participation rates.

------
amurmann
Too bad the highest education level in the survey is "Bachelor or higher". I
would have really liked to see the impact of having a Master or Phd. I wonder
if an education level above Bachelor makes any difference in regard of
unemployment or just for income. I am also curious how these numbers looked 30
or 40 years ago.

------
boh
Also interesting:

NY Times: The Jobless Rate for People Like You (2009)

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/econo...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-
lines.html)

Plots unemployment by race, education level, age and sex.

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malkia
So what would a contractor, or an actor, or someone not actor but from the
entertainment industry report? Some of those folks are regularly without job
for sometimes more than a month, until they are on to a new project...

~~~
gburt
They would probably report as self-employed, although unemployed is possible.

Unemployment in government statistics is an economic-political term basically
defined as "people who are able to work, who are actively looking for work and
have been for the last 4 weeks"

Its important that they are "actively" searching for work. This is generally
(in most countries, including Canada and the United States) defined the same
as it is in the relevant welfare codes: looking at job ads, submitting
resumes, making physical effort to find a new job (albeit, the extent to which
that effort is made is hard to measure)

------
cema
This apparently refers to the people registered as unemployed (and who keep
registering every week), versus people who do not get a regular paycheck. I am
not sure if the latter statistics exists for the US.

~~~
tokenadult
In the United States, these official statistics are based on sample surveys.
There are distinct survey questions about labor force participation and the
more narrowly defined concept of "unemployment." Description of the
methodology used in the United States is found here:

<http://www.bls.gov/cps/faq.htm>

and, specifically,

<http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm>

The United States federal definition of unemployment and labor force
participation are

"Who is counted as unemployed?

"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively
looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

"Workers expecting to be recalled from layoff are counted as unemployed,
whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. In all
other cases, the individual must have been engaged in at least one active job
search activity in the 4 weeks preceding the interview and be available for
work (except for temporary illness).

"Who is not in the labor force?

"Persons not in the labor force are those who are not classified as employed
or unemployed during the survey reference week.

"Labor force measures are based on the civilian noninstitutional population 16
years old and over. (Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons
confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on
active duty in the Armed Forces.) The labor force is made up of the employed
and the unemployed. The remainder--those who have no job and are not looking
for one--are counted as 'not in the labor force.' Many who are not in the
labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep
others out of the labor force."

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sp332
Is this normal? Or a recent development?

------
shasta
Correlation is not causation, etc.

~~~
apl

      > Correlation is not causation, etc.
    

This certainly is a true and tested adage, but I've got a feeling that the
correlation-backlash has gone too far in the other direction. Don't just
repeat it without _getting_ it. If substantiated through proposal of a
suitable mechanism, correlation is solid corroboration of a causality-claim.

More precisely, correlation most definitely never implies absence of
causation.

~~~
sukuriant
Upvoted because that is the most succint way I've read the response to that
common retort in this entire thread.

