
It’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/business/economy/its-a-tough-job-market-for-the-young-without-college-degrees.html
======
hvo
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11671933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11671933)

------
sageabilly
"Even so, the economic recovery has progressed more slowly for young high
school graduates than for those coming out of college."

I'd imagine this has something to do with the job pool coming out of the
recession being heavily seeded with people who already have degrees or degrees
plus working experience. Economy takes a nosedive, people get laid off- so
when the economy is on the upswing, those with degrees and working experience
will be the first to get hired again. I'd be curious about pre-recession
numbers of high school grad employment vs. now, post-recession.

"He added that vocational schools should no longer be thought of as dead ends,
since they can serve as steppingstones to associate degrees at community
colleges or to enrollment at four-year institutions."

I also think it's a tremendous disadvantage to say "Oh yeah, vocational school
can get to you an associate's or a college degree" because at some point we
have GOT to stop acting like a college degree is the be-all-end-all. We cannot
keep protesting against the tremendous student loan debt burden that's
creeping ever bigger on the one hand while touting college degrees as being
the ONLY way to get a high-paying "respectable" job. Not to mention there are
a shitton of services out there that you don't need a college degree for that
are for jobs which are highly skilled and that pay well. There's always going
to be a need for welders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, crane operators,
etc etc etc. These are jobs that are absolutely necessary for society to
function as a whole- and I think it's really dumb how at some point these jobs
were downgraded to being for "dumb people" or people who weren't "rich or
smart enough" to go to college.

~~~
crdoconnor
>we have GOT to stop acting like a college degree is the be-all-end-all. We
cannot keep protesting against the tremendous student loan debt burden that's
creeping ever bigger on the one hand while touting college degrees as being
the ONLY way to get a high-paying "respectable" job.

It's not "us", it's politicians who service the wealthy that like to lay down
those two contradictory pieces of advice ("why did you get a degree if you
didn't want debt?" / "why did you not get a degree if you wanted a decent
job?").

~~~
SmellTheGlove
College isn't the end-all, but the education helps, even if it's not purely
technical or vocational. Spending a few years just learning how to think about
various problems, discipline to study instead of drink (or if you're me, you
didn't do well with this), etc.

I do think that we over-emphasize the school itself. What I mean by that, at
least in my opinion, is that if it's not an Ivy and not the top school in the
field that you are 150% sure you will absolutely do (and won't change majors
3x like I did), then take the reasonably priced state option.

Time has flown and I recently realized I'm 12 years out of college. My
education was ~10k a year at a public school - a decent one, but not even the
best one in the state. I would not be materially farther ahead in life if I'd
spent 30k a year at UVA or 50k at Georgetown. And I'm not paying off
undergraduate debt right now. I am paying off grad (law school) debt, but
that's another story - I was a night student and by the time I graduated it
didn't make sense to restart my career in law when I was pretty well along in
my industry. And the mistake I made was not going to the cheaper, public state
school (and I didn't attend an Ivy).

By all means, get your education, but control the costs. To an 18 year old
graduating high school it might sound like a no brainer to spend 50k at the
"good" private school over the state option, but the reality is, there are few
circumstances where that's true. I did it the right way once, and the wrong
way once, so just my two cents.

~~~
sageabilly
"I do think that we over-emphasize the school itself."

God yes. I remember an article I read earlier this year (can't remember the
title or I'd link it) that followed students at Ivies and at State schools and
found that (controlling for grades) it was the students' commitment to
networking, extracurricular activities, volunteering, internships, etc. that
made the most difference to their long-term success. I WISH SOMEONE HAD TAUGHT
ME THAT! I graduated 10 years ago and oh my god I wish I had done more to
network/intern/volunteer when I was in school.

~~~
SmellTheGlove
It does come down to that, and it makes sense if you think about it. Fresh
grads come in batches of thousands at a time, many of them took the same
classes, similar majors, etc, even across schools. Grades sometimes matter,
sometimes don't (I had a low GPA because I had a bad habit of picking and
choosing what I wanted to learn about, and it didn't come in full course
increments). So what's left is the network and internships - the demonstrated
ability to act human enough that people will talk to you, and listen to your
ideas and think enough of you to give you a shot at something. That's why I
say Ivies still matter - there's access from there to a very different
network, and it opens up a job market that people like me would have very
little access to.

This will be very New England focused, since that's where I live, but if my
daughter doesn't get into an Ivy, I'd really try to talk her out of Colby or
Bates as a consolation prize. They're fine schools, but very expensive, and
probably not a whole lot better than some of the state options like UNH,
UMaine, UMass, UVM, etc. They're not 20-30k more per year better anyway.

~~~
douche
The one that I never figured out, is who on God's great earth would go to a
state university, in a state that you don't live in? Out of state tuition at
UNH, to pick one of them that's close by and I have interns from, is not very
much cheaper than going to Colby or Bates or BC/BU.

~~~
vonmoltke
Depends on what degree you want. Plenty of state schools like Texas, Michigan,
Berkeley, and Georgia Tech are in the top-20 for one field or another. Wanting
to go to one of those for one of their specialties is reasonable.

~~~
SmellTheGlove
Top 20 in a specialty is a stretch for me. I could see if something was the
top school for something - otherwise, we get into the wishy-washy world of
school rankings which really can be manipulated and start to mean less as you
go down the list. However, let's hypothetically say that top 20 is a good
cutoff - there is still the very real issue of a 17 year old kid (because
that's when we apply to college) following through on that specialty. It
doesn't matter how good a CS program CMU has if you decide two semesters in to
pursue that BFA.

Now, for your specific examples, provided that you are in-state, they actually
are reasonable options for any degree. Texas (10k), Michigan (14k), Cal
Berkeley (14k) and GT (10k), all excluding room and board. On the other hand,
I'd really not want to send my kid to those schools from out of state unless
she had some pretty specific plans and seemed reasonably likely to follow
through. And if that were the case, we'd probably pay that first year out of
state while figuring out residency to try and bring that down.

------
pcr0
_Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree_

I get that they're trying to capture the demographic of recent high school
grads, but pushing it to something like 21-27 would give more realistic
figures, and avoid conflating the figure too much with current college
students.

~~~
z4chj
It is probably safe to assume that just about 0 percent of people under the
age of 20 have a college degree (not including the few savants who graduate
high school before turning 18), which essentially makes this statistic
useless. It gets even worse when you take into account the commonly understood
fact that it takes many students more than 4 years to complete a degree. This
attempt at using a statistic that does not make sense in context really
degrades the value of the entire article and makes it seem like the nations
youth is worse off than it actually may be.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> not including the few savants who graduate high school before turning 18

I graduated high school before turning 18.

I never skipped a grade at any point.

My final year of high school consisted of taking four classes, of which three
were taken only because they were graduation requirements: "English 12",
"History 12", and "Acting 3". It may shock and surprise you to hear that the
content of "English 12" and "History 12" was not appreciably different from
any other "english" or history classes at the school. In particular, they were
not different from "English 8" and "History 8", except in that they counted
toward the UC "four years of high-school-level english and history classes"
requirement and the "* 8" classes technically didn't.

It doesn't take a savant to graduate before turning 18. All it takes is
realizing that staying in high school is stupid.

------
donatj
Talking to relatives who can't find jobs, "How many jobs did you apply for
today?" and the reply is inevitably "well, none".

How are you expecting to find a job when you don't apply? I applied for five
to ten jobs a day when I got out of trade school. I was unemployed so I
certainly had the time. It took almost six months to get someone to take a
chance on me.

The trick to getting a good job without a degree is to get someone, anyone, to
take a chance on you. You will be underpaid until you prove yourself but it
will cost you less than a degree in the long run.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> How are you expecting to find a job when you don't apply?

How are you going to apply to a job if there aren't any to apply to ?

~~~
rdudek
That really depends on the market location doesn't it? I've moved states to
find jobs in the past.

~~~
logfromblammo
So have I, but even then, I expanded my search radius in discrete steps:

    
    
      - 0-30 minute commute and remote for stable companies
      - 30-60 minute commute and remote for promising start-ups
      - less than 2 hour commute and remote for anybody
      - moving to a previously white-listed US metropolitan area
      - moving anywhere at all within the continental US
      - freelancing gigs
      - live on the government dole
      - emigrate to a Commonwealth country
      - emigrate to another Anglophone country
      - emigrate to a completely foreign culture
      - turn to a life of white-collar crime
      - "out, damned spot"
      - wage bloody revolution against the corporation whores
      - sell humanity out to the lizard people
    

So far, I haven't ever had to progress past step 5. I'd be a little worried
about folks stuck on step 7, as that's just before the slippery slope starts.

~~~
daemin
Why would you prefer to live on government welfare instead of moving to
another country?

I can see people not wanting to if they are "settled" in an area - either by
property or family - but I would think doing something productive in another
country would be better than doing nothing.

~~~
logfromblammo
I wouldn't be "doing nothing". The dole isn't always about sitting on ass and
cashing checks. It's just that the things I would be doing would probably not
be sufficiently remunerative to maintain a lifestyle that includes clean beds
and showers.

------
molotok
Even though this is a dupe story, I was unable to find a decent answer to the
following question in the original comments. I am a recent grad in a
non-(CS/physics/math/eng) discipline, where I just got to discover enough
coding to get hooked but not enough to actually acquire it as a marketable
skill. I have carried enough interest through to take it up as a serious after
work hobby and am learning by doing small projects in Python and a few other
languages that I am trying out (I was advised Python as a good gateway drug).
I would like to work in software development, but am realistically behind
hordes of recent CS grads who look incomparably better on paper (and are for
the most part better than me skills-wise at this point). As a result I had to
take a job in another area, but still have my ambition to be a dev, probably a
web dev.

My question is this: what course of action would you advise I take to get in?
Is this even a sensible goal? I am continuously working on my skills going to
meetups/dojos and working on projects alone and with other people, but at what
point can I realistically try my luck in the job market, what sort of job
could I realistically target and is this even a sensible thing to do with my
20s?

~~~
dmd149
I'm not a programmer, nor did I graduate from college (2009) with any
technical skills.

However, one option you may consider is taking a non-technical job someplace
and using your programming skills at your non-technical job to impress the
hell out of your boss/company.

For example, a few years ago I joined a government human caiptal consulting
firm. I basically learned Excel and al ittle VBA to automate some really
tedious tasks, and also learned enough to do some interesting analysis.

I impressed a few clients with my work and I became an independent consultant
making far more money just because I work in a field that doesn't have many
"technical" people in it.

Being a big fish in a small pond that doesn't expect you to be a big fish
could lead to some interesting opportunities. Analytical/technical types in
non-analytical/technical fields is a good way to do that.

~~~
gregw134
I don't think most developers realize how much average people can be impressed
by a little Excel/VBA magic.

------
iamthepieman

        Among 17- to 24-year-olds, just over 10 percent have
        completed college or achieved an advanced degree.
    

assuming a student enters college right out of high school when they are
between 18 and 19 and graduates when they are between 22 and 23, only the 24
year olds in that statistic are even slightly anomalous. The rest could be
getting their degrees or not even entered college yet.

That statistic is beyond useless to the point of being misleading and
disingenuous.

Of course a 17 year old has not completed an advanced degree.

It's like saying that only 5% of 10-year-olds are 6 feet or taller.

------
at-fates-hands
I have several nephews that are between 18-23 age. It's pretty surprising the
amount of opportunity they have to get into the workplace and just are not
motivated.

Getting into a skilled trade is a great career path. I have a co-worker whose
son went to vo-tech for welding, got hired by one of the largest construction
companies (they're building the USA Bank Stadium in Minneapolis) and is now
making close to 50K, with no kids and he's not married, so he's pretty set.

When I talk with my nephews, they complain they're broke and can't move out
from their families house, but don't want to go to a coding boot camp, or go
to a Vo-Tech and learn a trade. They just don't see either as a very
"glamorous" career, so they reject it out of hand - which is puzzling. So they
work several part time jobs, live at home and have no "launch date" to either
go to a 4 year school, or get into something that would give them a solid
career path.

I'd also like to point out, its _always_ been tough for young kids to get into
the job market without college degrees. Even if you were learning a trade, it
took years to go from apprentice to journeyman to master. Even when I was in
college (mid aughts) I had many friends who didn't go to college and couldn't
get a whiff of stable corporate gig. They would always go interview and the
guy would say, "You have a great resume, you'd probably do well here, but you
need a 4 year degree. Go get your degree and I'll hire you immediately." They
were relegated to jumping around between small mom and pop shops that didn't
have the stability of a larger corporation. Every couple of years they were on
the move.

~~~
cableshaft
> I'd also like to point out, its _always_ been tough for young kids to get
> into the job market without college degrees.

No it wasn't, you're just not going back far enough. The 2000s (when you said
you went to school) isn't far back enough. We're talking 1950's, 60's, 70's,
80's it definitely wasn't tough for a young person to get a job without a
degree. 90's is when that started to change.

My dad actually quit going to college in the late 70's because grocery store
jobs (cashier, stocking) were easy to get and were paying better than what he
could expect with what he was studying in college. That's definitely not true
anymore.

------
mattmcknight
I think Mike Rowe's foundation[1] is really a good idea towards solving this
disconnect. He's putting scholarships together for the training necessary to
do "blue collar" work. Heard about it on the Tim Ferriss podcast. Be nice if
the government was doing this instead of supporting more degrees in subjects
that don't allow the recipients to provide value to others.

[1][http://profoundlydisconnected.com/](http://profoundlydisconnected.com/)

------
roflchoppa
I was never given the opportunity to try machine-shop, or woodworking in
highschool, those classes were already removed from schooling around the time
I got there. But it would have been a nice path for me to get a AWS
certification in welding. I'm surprised that these have been removed from
curriculum, there is a pretty high value in these classes in terms of exposure
and training for skilled work... Hopefully it is brought back at some point
with the explosion of interest DIY, it would be cool to see an engineering
course that offers exposure to different fields (mechanical // chemical //
fabrication // failure identification). Which in turn would really drive
interest into engineering not as a "major" but as an ideological mindset.

I think I'm starting to ramble...

------
hlfw0rd
This greatly depends on the industry. I dropped out of high school after my
freshman year and have never had any issue finding a job as a software
engineer or project manager. I haven't even been asked about my education in 5
or 6 years. You just need to market yourself, be open to relocation and make
your skill set seem like an asset to the companies you are applying too. This
_is_ an odd industry though.

------
SmellTheGlove
It's a tough job market for the young _with_ college degrees. A lot of large
companies are displacing (firing) experienced talent in an effort to get
cheaper, and it's putting a lot of experienced, talented people back in the
market. Many companies are simply hiring experience for not a ton more money
(since they're now unemployed) over entry level.

At my company (fortune 500, not a tech company), I've been very involved in
internship and entry level hiring since I remember how hard it was for me to
land my first post-college job in 2004. We've had layoffs, and I don't see the
strength in our internship and entry level programs that I did even last year
- and we're a healthy company.

Anyhow, first post, don't beat me to death :)

------
alvern
_Issac Cordoso, who is graduating from Medford Vocational Technical High
School in Massachusetts in June, already has a job lined up as an electrical
apprentice, earning $12 an hour. He is also applying for a coveted spot as an
apprentice with the local electrical union, where the starting pay is $18.25
an hour. As an apprentice, he could work while training to become a
journeyman, a position with an hourly wage of $28. Most of Mr. Cordoso’s
classmates also have jobs waiting for them, he said._

So whomever hired Cordoso on as an apprentice is saving $6.25 an hour in wages
over a union apprentice. And they'll have to hire him on at $18-24 an hour
once he's competent to keep him from jumping ship.

~~~
edc117
Assuming they can't get him to settle for even less. This is another
unfortunate side effect of the situation; those with jobs on offer can drive
wages even lower because there's so much competition for positions.

'Well, you're correct, normally we pay 18$ an hour, but the economy...'

------
6stringmerc
Workforce demographics and employment data is one of the few US economic
indicators that I consistently see ZeroHedge covering well and putting into
context.

What I mean by this is their coverage of how the 55+ age group has been
cannabalizing job openings from the youth is readily apparent in their
routinely updated chart.

The following version was updated alongside their 5/6/16 article:

[http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2016/04/20/Jobs%20old%20vs%20young.jpg)

------
Kurimo
"10% of 17-24 year olds have a college degree..."

No shit! When you include 17-21 year olds who have not been in college long
enough to get a 4 year degree (and barely a two year degree for 20-21 year
olds) the numbers sure look a lot lower!

Great reporting New York Times... wonder why you're struggling with top notch
number manipulation like that!

~~~
adrenalinelol
And they are in the "gold standard" tier of journalism...

------
neap24
What's even more alarming to me is that, in some industries, it is becoming
tough get a job with just a Batchelor's degree. I work at a private high
school where 70-80% of teachers have a Master's or PhD...most of whom couldn't
get hired at a university.

~~~
Bartweiss
This is definitely a concern, but depending on your state education is a
distorted market. Where I grew up, 8-12 educators (even most private ones) had
to have a teaching degree and a subject matter degree.

As a result, pretty much all of them had either a subject Bachelor's and an
advanced degree in teaching, or a teaching BS and a subject Masters. A double
major would have been fine, but that's rare. The regulatory landscape had
basically enforced teaching as a two-degree profession.

------
tyingq
I wonder if there's room for an entrepreneur program for young people that are
suited to that sort of thing.

Something that would help boostrap lower cost / lower risk businesses they
could start, training, bookkeeping, mentors, access to small loans, etc.

There are some small businesses that are fairly immune to failure provided the
owner has some amount of hustle. Things like becoming an in-home daycare
provider, cleaning windows at small businesses, mobile pet grooming, power
washing, etc. If there were some way to vet specific skills of the applicant,
you could a few more to that list as well.

I suppose it wouldn't make a huge dent, as only some fraction of the kids
would be suitable for that sort of thing. But, it seems worthwhile to me.

------
Spooky23
High school grad is the new dropout. Even factory assembly work requires post-
high school education.

IMO, this is more reflective of the shift of high school towards 4-year
college prep than rather than changes in the marketplace.

------
kyled
It's easy, continually study what interests you. Start this while you are
young.

Work for smaller businesses that pay less, get the experience, and move on up.

You could always try to start your own business too.

------
aries1980
I think what matters is how much value you can make. If you can explain you
would make 2X of your employment cost, and your reasons are sound, it won't
matter who you are any more.

------
brink
This was posted yesterday..

------
Kinnard
I'm surprised the uncollege hasn't had more success tackling this. It started
out as a mass movement and has now morphed into a gap-year program.

------
awt
College as it was perhaps even 50 or 75 years ago _is_ necessary. What passes
for college today is not all that helpful.

------
evansibok
To many jobs, to little qualified candidates but nothing a hacker can't fix.

------
clamprecht
After reading PG's _Submarine_ [0], I wonder if this is going to be a
recurring PR push, backed by some association of US colleges.

[0]
[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
oldmanjay
It's a tough job market for anyone who can't differentiate their skills from
the pack. That's not a big, it's the feature that incentivizes people to skill
up.

------
pigpaws
meh - this applies only to people who are looking to do things that they
_think_ require a degree. Plumbers and Electricians don't need degrees. There
also persists (for various reasons) that the 'younger generations' don't want
to put their dues in, that they want to start at the top. (holding out for a
management position).

You want to code? Great! take a job doing something else while you code on the
side. You want to help people learn 4th Century Prussian Interpretive Dance?
fine, take a different job as a step-stone to that.

the point being, you don't need some bloated, under-educated piece of paper to
get a job - or even _the_ job you want. You just have to work harder to get
there, something that people just don't want to do anymore. No one wants to
start 'in the mail room' anymore.

~~~
artmageddon
> No one wants to start 'in the mail room' anymore.

I think part of the problem is that jobs are tighter and tighter these days
and the proverbial mail room may not be open for work.

~~~
pigpaws
not true - there are PLENTY of low-level or entry level 'jobs out there', but
people today are SO spoiled that they don't want to _take_ those jobs because
they are seen as _beneath_ them.

Why _can 't_ someone have a job at McDonald's while you take a non-paid
internship at a BioTech company? or study for Chemical Engineering? or code at
night?

Are you honestly telling me that there is a shortage of burger-flippers,
janitors and building engineers out there? A "Job" is not hard to find - you
just have to be willing to swallow your pride and take it, and use it as a
stepping stone to get to the next position. Knowledge comes from books.
_Wisdom_ comes from experience.

"WORK" is a four-letter word, both literally and figuratively.

AWS has a free tier specifically to _play_ on, to learn. MIT and other
universities have FREE online classes. an education is not hard to get.

~~~
Bartweiss
And how will I keep my non-paid internship? I can't show up reliably, because
my McDonald's job has variable hours and I only get a day's notice.

And how will I afford my studies for chemical engineering? I can't even afford
community college on minimum wage, and no one will hire a Chem E without an
accredited degree (for good reason). I can take EdX courses (not free if I
want certification), but they can't ever equate to in-person courses and real
college students are holding protests to ensure that doesn't change.

And how will I set aside time for nightly coding? My McDonald's job is a zero-
hour contract, so I'm not guaranteed _any_ work on a given day and can't
budget. Meanwhile they'll fire me if I turn down a shift, so I'm on TaskRabbit
and Mechanical Turk trying to make quick cash at $3/hour because I can't
accommodate a second real job.

In the meantime, my job isn't a stepping stone to shit except nightshift
manager, because the post above that requires a college degree and doesn't
privilege current employees.

Sure, there are jobs out there to get, and there are ways to self-study and
get ahead. Granted. So yeah, lecture your unemployed cousin about playing Call
of Duty instead of getting a night job. He's a lazy slob and he ought to do
better.

But it's the height of condescension to say that structural unemployment and
negative real wage growth are happening because people suddenly got lazier.
Don't come and tell me that "work is a four letter word" when we have the same
13% poverty rate we've had for forty years. That's not lazy teens, that's the
world you live in.

~~~
pigpaws
you're cute. wrong, but cute.

as the article cited 17-24y/o i'm guessing the 'poverty rate' is a little
lower. please try to keep up. If you want to extrapolate the 17-24y/o
demographic to include _everyone_ , please do so when it actually applies -
not to _this_ conversation re: _this_ article. Strawman arguments are
universally known as bullshit.

So, since you're using you're extensive knowledge of McDonald's shift work,
You'd already know that the corporation behind it offers college assistance
and flex scheduling, right? of course you would because you're a smart guy.

also, in actuality, my cousin _does_ work for McDonald's. He worked there for
10 years before buying his first (of 3 so far) franchise at the age of 28.

and while i never said self-study would absolutely get you the job you want,
taking a 'lesser' job would get you to the next step and so on and so forth to
GET the job you want. Its called WORK for a reason. Most people today work
harder to get _out_ of work than it would take to actually _DO_ to the work
itself.

~~~
dang
> _you 're cute. wrong, but cute [...] please try to keep up_

We've asked you before to stop being uncivil in comments here. Please post
civilly and substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

