Graduates choose to attend college instead of heading straight into the workforce for a range of reasons, be it furthering their studies in a specific field or gaining qualifications needed for a certain role. But their motives often boil down to one thing: Landing a career in the profession of their choice.
Likewise, the unemployment rate for those aged between 20 and 24 with some college experience but no degree, as well as those of the same age demographic with a Master’s degree or higher, spiked last month.
FRED reports that Gen Z with a Master’s or higher now have an unemployment rate of 7.2% while those with some college experience have an unemployment rate of 9.4%.
As researchers from Oxford Economics reflected in a study last month: “Those in the professional, scientific, and technical services are less likely than their peers to seek employment in a different industry, though they are more likely to accept underemployment—defined as a college graduate who is employed in a job where more than 50% of workers in the same role do not have a bachelor’s degree or higher.”
Indeed, while some young potential staffers are willing to take sideways steps in order to earn an income, the analysts suggested Gen Z grads are having a harder time than most: “The upshot is that the unemployment rate for recent college graduates will remain elevated in the near term without a surge in demand from tech companies or a mass exodus from the labor force by these individuals, both of which seem unlikely.
“While these workers only account for around 5% of the workforce, they have played an oversize role in pushing the national unemployment higher.”
An argument could be made that the data suggests employers aren’t finding the skills they need in newly-minted grads, despite the tens of thousands of dollars many will have forked out to achieve their degrees.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, for example, has pushed for education reform to rank schools based on whether its students land jobs as opposed to how many of them get into college.
The idea that college is the only way to land a well-paid job is also inaccurate, he added, saying 17-year-old bank tellers can take home $40,000 a year “and if you happen to have a family at 18 or whatever, you get $20,000 in medical benefit for your family. You can be a welder, you can be a coder, you could be cyber, you could be automotive—all of those jobs are $40,000 to $60,000, $70,000 a year.”
They added: “The American dream isn’t dead, but the path to reach it might look different for job seekers today than it did for their parents. We owe it to younger generations to open our minds to the different opportunities workers have to learn new skills and achieve their dreams.”
