
53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed—How? - evo_9
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/
======
yalurker
How? Because parents, teachers and mass media said to 'do what you love and
the money will follow' or some variant, so kids picked majors with no demand
in the labor market.

Because affluent, well-connected kids got humanities degrees at Ivy league
schools and then used their connections and the prestige of the school to
secure high paying jobs, and kids from blue-collar backgrounds didn't realize
they can't do the same thing with a humanities degree from the local college.

Because kids who should have gone to trade schools or entered the workforce
after high school were convinced they had to go to some college, so they
wasted a few years studying something they're not good at and don't care
about, so they didn't learn anything to make themselves more employable than
they were before they started.

~~~
scarmig
2001, months worked out of the past 4 months for people with bachelor's
degrees Engineering : 3.2 months Literature: 2.8 months Overall: 3.1 months

2009, months worked out of the past 4 months for people with bachelor's
degrees Engineering: 3.1 months Literature: 2.7 months Overall: 3.0 months

It's a bit more complicated than people getting worthless degrees in
underwater basket weaving.

~~~
mbrubeck
In other words, the average lit major spent 50% more time unemployed than the
average engineering major. That actually shows that field of study _does_ make
a major difference, even when times are hard for both.

~~~
scarmig
My point may have been a bit subtle. The argument is not about absolute levels
(no one would dispute that techies have better employment outcomes than
fuzzies, both in getting a job and compensation).

People are claiming that recent youth unemployment is due to bad choice of
major: the argument seems to go that, as technology is introducing serious
economic disruption, people who get humanities degrees are disproportionately
left at a significant market disadvantage, which is causing the recent uptick
in college graduate unemployment. This, however, doesn't account for the
actual historical data, as engineering and literature majors show similar
relative employment rates as in 2001.

------
ZephyrP
Similar articles have surfaced a lot recently with the publication of the
BLS's new labor statistics, so I'll repeat what I've said before.

I recently turned 20 years old and I'm not in college nor do I plan to finish
a degree (and if it wasn't for individuals Peter Thiel, I might still be
making a $100,000 mistake). I'm a fairly normal guy, I've been out of high
school for 3 years now and I'm making slightly less than Bureau of Labor
Statistic's 2010 Median Income for 'Software Developers', which I believe is
more than enough to not be considered underemployed.

I see a lot of psychic pain in my peers about how hard work is or the labor
market is so difficult, but to be frank the failures I see are directly
attributable to plain laziness in a generation addicted to easy and inane
pleasure.

I'm afraid young people of today are losing the real virtues of life like
living with passion and taking responsibility for who you are. The ability to
make something out of yourself and feeling joy in life is more alive today
than in any other point in human history.

I see a lot of active rejection of the ideals of hacker culture, perhaps
epitomized by my generation's obsession with video games and fake work. This
is really a shame, as one thing that comes out of hacker culture is not a
feeling of defeatism, but rather a feeling of a real kind of exuberance about
your work and life. Your work is yours to create. I've read the college labor
statistics with some interest, even fear. But when I read them, I can't help
but think that something essential about our generation and present
technological zeitgeist is being left out. As if somehow our work is simply
just a confluence of forces far beyond our control, framing college graduates
as fragmented or marginalized which opens up a world of excuses.

From Chaitin to Stallman, when hackers talk about the meaning of work, they're
not talking about abstract decisions, they're talking about you reading this
post, doing something that has concrete consequences, making decisions and
accepting the consequences. It may be true that there are seven billion people
on the planet, never the less, your work matters in material terms, as well as
to others.

In short, I'd encourage any young person my age to not write themselves off as
a victim of societal forces. It's always our decision who we are and what we
do with our lives.

~~~
kiba
This is all an ancedote and does not provide any actual insight in our
generation. You need a study to back it up.

~~~
ZephyrP
Come, come. You know that all I'm saying is that you're more than just a gear
in some deterministic machine. I'm not saying these statistics are invalid
whatsoever. You simply should not use them to frame your chance of success.

I'll reiterate my central idea here -- your life is yours to create. I'm of
the firm conviction that if you put limits on yourself, they will inevitably
spread into other areas of your life.

However, if you'd prefer a more naturalistic explanation -- if you are
unrelenting the Central Limit Theorem will work in your advantage. The most
notable Scientists are not the smartest, they are the ones who have published
the most.

------
MartinCron
If you're still in college (or about to go to college) and reading this, I
have one bit of advice:

It's much easier to get a job as a college _student_ with no experience than
as a college _graduate_ with no experience. If you don't do some work in your
field (PT, internship, volunteering, summer program, whatever) you've wasted a
one of the best opportunities you'll ever have.

~~~
michaelf
I can't agree more. When I was a freshman, I was required to do a work study
as part of the deal for my loans. I didn't want to do it -- my course load
seemed hard enough -- but I found a job as an "undergraduate research
programmer" at a small computer-vision oriented lab at my school. I worked
around 10 hours a week during the school year, and 40 during the summers.
Particularly during my freshman and sophomore years, I felt completely
useless. But, even without noticing it, you pick up a LOT just by struggling
with it (e.g. gdb, complex build systems, working with legacy code, version
control systems, common patterns of software development, and how to get into
a flow state even while hacking on bits of software that aren't all that
interesting to you personally). By the summer between my sophomore and junior
year, I was finally starting to feel a bit productive.

In any other environment, I would have _never_ had the opportunity to be a
completely worthless drain on resources for so long.

So certainly avail yourself of any opportunity to get a job while in school. I
was lucky in that I was essentially forced to do it based on the terms of my
loans. Any parents reading this: see if you can do your kids a favor and
secure them a loan that requires your kids to get a work study, coop, or
internship. And no, working as barista at the campus cafe doesn't count!

------
WillyF
I've been working on my startup in this space for almost 5 years now (One Day
One Job - <http://www.onedayonejob.com/> ). One of the biggest buzzwords I
hear from job seekers is "relevant."

I send daily e-mails about interesting companies with entry level jobs. When
people unsubscribe, they sometimes leave comments like: "These jobs aren't
relevant to my interests." or "Jobs are irrelevant to my location."

Very few students are able to realize that they are irrelevant to the job
market. If you're not willing to develop new skills, adjust your attitude, and
change locations, you're going to be one of the 53% (unless you got it right
from the start and majored in Engineering).

------
frankydp
Quote from the comments on theatlantic.com

This guy pretty much sums up the failings of the system without saying it.
Academia is out of touch with the market it is suppose to supply workers for.

procerus 3 hours ago I think most people know very well why they may not have
a job - perhaps they're basically doing everything right but just haven't got
lucky yet or applied for enough jobs for one to catch. Or perhaps, like me,
they're basically unemployable and have no relevant skills or experience. I
know that, and I'm not surprised that I'm at a low level in work. My degree is
broadly useless, I got no industry experience/internships while in education,
I have no other tempting skills like math, languages or programming, and also
I'm a pretty weird, socially awkward person who doesn't know how to make
people warm to him.

I only realised all that fairly recently and a bit too late to deal with while
still in education, I should have caught it sooner when I went to the college
careers presentations and there were a lot of accounting, tech, engineering,
finance companies there. All through school I was fed ideas about how clever I
was and how going to college is totally badass and I’ll walk into 50-60k jobs
as soon as I graduate. Whether the teachers or my parents honestly believed it
or not, it was bs, and quite damaging bs. I did what I was led to believe was
necessary (by parents who had never gone to college and teachers who were
clueless) and that was not nearly enough. Other people noticed what to do
though, so good on them. My mind was elsewhere, never really focussed on a
career and worried obsessively over my grades, this is my fault and I realize
I shouldn't blame parents/teachers.

Now I am at point of really low self esteem because the sudden realization of
my errors over the past 4 years comes to light and the fact is that I am not
that clever if I can;t pick up economic/job trends and instead have my head in
the clouds.

If you have a 17/18 yr old you need to sit them down and have long deep
conversations about what it takes to become financially independent and you
need to keep having those conversations until they say "mom, dad, I want to
gain this skill and I can see from job adverts that I will be paid $xx.xxxx
can we discuss what further education or job training/experience I will need
to achieve this"

It is very important in my view that an 18 year old has at least 1 job and
career path laid out before they move on from high school, they can change it
as they grow older but at least they have something to fall back on. It is
really scary how many students have literally no idea what they want to do
once they finish school.

------
MrFoof
Lack of critical thinking.

I'm not saying this in the sense of, "critical thinking should be taught in
public schools". The issue is rarely does the average person look at an
important decision with any real amount of thought. Yes, person. Not teenager.

When I was a teenager (tail-end of dot-com boom) there was this implicit
assumption that I was going to go to the best school I could afford and get
accepted into -- loans be damned -- and that was it. That's what friends would
tell me, my parents, television, teachers and my guidance counselor. Everyone
simply rolled with it.

I didn't. I got into stellar schools, but I didn't get any full scholarships.
MIT and WPI would've ultimately required a loan large enough to buy the house
I grew up in at its current market value. That alone was enough to scare me
shitless. My sister was at Cornell racking up that kind of debt as it was, but
didn't think anything of it. I sure as hell did. I looked at my job prospects
where I lived. I looked at salaries. I thought the evaluation of tech stocks
was absolutely ludicrous* and wasn't sustainable. I went to a state school,
paid cash thanks to working nearly full-time, withdrew second semester and
planned out my alternate approach. My parents kicked me out of the house and
everyone thought I was an imbecile.

They don't now. However it wasn't fate that got me where I was. I sit down,
think about my situation, and figure out not only what I want to change but
how I'm going to go about accomplishing it. I do it every year. I do it every
time I don't like something with my current situation. It's not that people
are inept. I'll have friends over that are displeased with X, and I just pelt
them with questions. I ask what they don't like, what they're going to do
about it, and then have them prove that plan is feasible to see if it'll float
or if it needs revision. They go home with a plan, and eventually they act on
it one way or another and shit gets better.

Most people would be a lot better off if they just had someone blow holes in
their plans, to ensure they have a decent plan in the first place.

\-----

* _And thought my parents' notion of the house doubling in value every seven years until the end of time was nuts since I was 12 (early 90s). "Dad, does your salary double every seven years?" "... go the hell to your room."_

------
magicalist
discussion from last night: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877179>

As I said then, it's worth noting that according to this analysis, we're at an
all time high of 53% jobless or underemployed, but the all time low was 41%
(right before the dot com crash). 4/10 vs 5/10. Oh no.

With only two data points (and some probable error estimates), I don't think
we're looking at enough of a trend to hang a narrative on.

Also, as this article notes, it's suspicious that a significantly higher
percentage of college graduates under 25 are unemployed compared to all people
under 25, considering that without an age limit the ratio is close to 2:1 the
other way. Without actual data and without a plausible mechanism of action,
I'll remain skeptical.

------
candre717
Some Issues (generalizations, of course):

> Students confuse avocation with vocation.

> Students are foolish to IGNORE the realities of the job market for their
> majors as we assume more debt.

> College doesn't teach networking.

> College doesn't teach employable skills. Theory AND Practice.

> Students don't have realistic expectations of their first jobs after
> college.

> Even a little investment or initiative in learning something practical -
> like SQL, Drupal, or Sharepoint - can go a long way to opening doors to jobs
> students actually want.

> Not everyone needs to be a business or engineering major, but we, as a
> students, need think about life after college more seriously than we have.

~~~
MartinCron
_College doesn't teach networking_

I take it you've never been to business school. Sometimes it felt like they
taught nothing but.

~~~
skadamat
I'm a business major in a top 10 undergrad b-school now and they still don't
teach networking unfortunately.

They just throw networking and recruiting info sessions DAILY, but they don't
teach you how to network. They don't teach you how to explore your passions
and interests, research companies working on those kinds of problems, and how
to approach them for internships, jobs, etc.

Business schools succeed when they send a lot of students to corporations, so
that these corporations come back and sponsor programs and stuff for the
B-School. If you're interested in other jobs besides corporations, you have to
find them yourself!

~~~
beambot
Sounds like they're teaching it "trial by fire." My undergrad and grad EE
days: 12-hour workdays (nights?) in a dungeon-like room.

I often say to mentored students: engineering is 80% banging your head against
a wall, 10% cursing, and 10% progress. It's a long, hard slog to become an
expert. Daily networking events sounds like that to me (and frankly, even more
unpleasant!)

------
skilesare
High Schools and Colleges in the US should begin to treat every student as if
when they graduate they will be a 1099 contractor in their chosen field. This
will better prepare them for the realities of the markets they will enter and
better fit the independence profile of the current generation.

I certainly wish my education had been down this path. I wouldn't have wasted
10 years working for other people only to learn that if I really wanted to
achieve my goals I was going to have to work for myself.

------
skadamat
The main reason that nobody's really hit on is that it's super easy to get a
college degree now.

Sir Ken Robinson (check out his TED video on creativity) talks about how
there's academic inflation. Now most jobs require a master's whereas 5 years
ago a bachelor's was enough. With the rise of vocational schools and online
ones like Phoenix University, the number of college degrees has gone up, but
jobs have not gone up proportionally.

------
easp
I'm going to point out that if significant numbers of these unemployed young
people were as enlightened as some of the commentators here and had learned to
program, the whole structure of the technical job market might look very
different. There would be more people competing for jobs, and capital, and
less time for smugness and/or condescension.

I am personally of the belief that the education system is overpriced and
underperforming, but I don't want to see it become a trade-school system
either. I'd prefer that college students have the opportunity to follow their
interests and be exposed to a range of thought and ideas. After graduating ,
I'd prefer they have a chance to find their niche without being hammered by
student loan payments. I do want people entering college to be clear eyed
about the idea that they will have to find their niche.

------
fecklessyouth
Yes, get skills. But you don't necessarily need to get "hard skills" from a
college major. Often, education that stresses the "hard skills" tends to
undervalue the "soft skills" like reading and writing which, in my opinion,
are more important.

"Hard skills" can often only be developed through experience, or, as the
article notes, through alternate education paths, or, as this community
stresses, through independent online learning. Since this is so, why major in
a "hard skill?"

You have your entire life to learn hard skills. You can do it in the summer.
You can do it in your spare time. You can do it while working at Starbucks.
You can do it one class a semester at a time. But you don't have your whole
life to sit around a table and discuss Vergil. I say, major in something
"useless."

------
aresant
I've heard before that the huge rise in humanities degrees is responsible for
this trend, and the data seem to agree:

 __* Highest unemployment rates by major __*

1\. Clinical psychology 19.5%

2\. Miscellaneous fine arts 16.2%

3\. United States history 15.1%

4\. Library science 15.0%

5\. (tie) Military technologies; educational psychology 10.9%

 __* Lowest unemployment rates by major __*

1\. Medical technology technician 1.4%

2\. Nursing 2.2%

3\. Treatment therapy professions 2.6%

4\. Medical assisting services 2.9%

5\. Agriculture production & management 3.0%

ref:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-m...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-
majors-with-the-highest-unemployment-rates/)

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-m...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-
majors-with-lowest-unemployment-rates/)

~~~
hack_edu
_Undergrad:_ US History, BA (<5 years ago)

 _Graduate:_ Library & Information Science, MA

Guess I'm a lucky one. Currently employed as a developer outside of both
fields. :D

EDIT: any academic/education-focused startups interested in poaching a
developer should contact me at reveldave AT gmail.com

~~~
wyclif
When I was an undergrad I wanted to go on and earn an MA in Library Science. I
love information science and books, bookbinding, publishing, archives, &c. But
after getting a great heart-to-heart talk with a university Librarian friend,
I saw the writing on the wall and saved a lot of money.

I'd like to think that I've redirected at least _some_ of that interest
(except for the book binding and preservation component) into programming.

~~~
hack_edu
The iron grip that the publishing industry has upon anything library is
absolutely stunning. There is so much potential for disruption, yet all the
valuable IP (journals, indices, etc) is locked up by centuries-old monopolies.
It makes Blackboard look like a puny little troll.

------
localhost3000
Lack of demonstrable skills followed by lack of initiative amplified by poor
economy.

------
psylence519
From the cleveland.com source article: "I don't even know what I'm looking
for," says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as
he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in
2010 with a creative writing degree.

How are so many unemployed? Creative writing degrees, that's how.

~~~
guelo
53% of recent college graduates got creative writing degrees?

~~~
ahlatimer
No, but a fair number (over 30%) have gotten degrees that I would consider to
be hard to market. Even more if you include degrees that would be hard to
market if they weren't followed up by a Master's and Doctorate (e.g.,
psychology).

[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_282.asp?r...](http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_282.asp?referrer=list)

