Congratulations Class of 2012...You're Underemployed!

So you got into a good college, studied hard, partied harder and made the most of it while there and now its time to graduate and step into the workforce. For the estimated one-and-a-half million graduates with pipe dreams of landing the perfect career or making a difference in the world, reality will hit you like a runaway Mack truck instead as you get behind last years’ graduates at the underemployment line with your student loans shackling you while fantasizing about those dreams coming true. Here are the sobering facts.

Cliff Zukin, Senior Research Fellow at Rutgers University’s Heldrich Center for Workforce Development finds that…

  • 60% are in debt in excess of $20,000
  • 50% of surveyed graduates from 2011 are currently employed while Colombia University’s Economist, Till von Wachter finds those that have jobs make 10% less than their 2006-07 counterparts
  • 50% of the full-time graduates are employed in non-collegiate required positions
  • 20% go back to college, furthering their indebtedness

The problem is that the inaccessibility of labor deprives graduates of valuable experience and as a result every six months they are not employed the competition of college-educated labor grows more rigorously. The economic implications of this are alarming and in Zukin’s words, graduates:

“…don't even see in the foreseeable future a secure job, a comfortable income, starting a family" and "…45 percent do not see owning a home at any point in the near future."

In a Gallup Poll echoing the situation, Chief Economist, Dennis Jacobe found that of the 18-29 year old category as whole…

  • 32% as of April are underemployed, an increase from March
  • 18.4% are part-time workers that want to work full-time
  • 13.06% are unemployed which is unchanged since last year

Additionally, this month it was also reported that only 63% of the adult labor workforce is currently employed, down from 67% or a decrease of over six million and Economist Peter Morici has been quoted as saying:

Some 80% of the reduction” in the unemployment rate from 10% hit in October 2009 to today’s 8.2% “has been from adults quitting the labor force.”

Monkeys, talk to me: If you’re still in college, what is your strategy to avoid this situation?

For those of you who are graduating…get in line.

To the people who are still looking, what is your perspective and what have you learned?

To those who are already in a working career…we envy you.


Sources: Neal Boortz, Fox Business News, Gallup, and NPR, May 2012

 

moving to china to find a job, most likely in consulting, boutique shops that cater to western clients or shops that focus on cross-border M&A/private placements where my superior english skills can give me an edge over the average chinese graduate. I have already gotten some leads as I interned there last summer so it's looking up. it might take a month or two and pay will probably be low, like around 20k per year but im doing it because 1. i love it there and am seriously considering staying there long term and 2. i want to get better at mandarin for personal reasons (im ABC). either way i think it'll be an interesting experience and figure if i want to come back to the states i can choose to after business school. i think it'd also look interesting from a b-school adcoms perspective

 

Im going to school in western Canada. I know of a lot of IBankers being hired in the oil patch in Alberta but western Canada is growing very fast so I am not horribly concerned. I dont mind mining ether and I currently live in the mining capital of the world (Vancouver). Good luck to you american monkeys, your government doesnt look like they will be making anything easier on you in the near future.

 

"For the estimated one-and-a-half million graduates with pipe dreams of landing the perfect career or making a difference in the world, reality will hit you like a runaway Mack truck instead"

Co-signed, Member of 11'

GBS
 

As bad as it is here, it's even worse in Spain and elsewhere. The most important thing to remember is that job searching is a marathon, not a sprint, and maintaining a positive attitude makes a huge difference.

Americans are an optimistic, forward-thinking people. Things WILL get better.

Metal. Music. Life. www.headofmetal.com
 

No worries. Plan? Be better than the majority of the pack. As George Carlin once put it: Think of how stupid the average person is. Now realize that half of them is more stupid than that. And I guess having finance and accounting master degrees from different countries won't hurt either.

 
Fredbird:
No worries. Plan? Be better than the majority of the pack. As George Carlin once put it: Think of how stupid the average person is. Now realize that half of them is more stupid than that. And I guess having finance and accounting master degrees from different countries won't hurt either.
George is conflating the mean and the median
 
Boothorbust:
Fredbird:
No worries. Plan? Be better than the majority of the pack. As George Carlin once put it: Think of how stupid the average person is. Now realize that half of them is more stupid than that. And I guess having finance and accounting master degrees from different countries won't hurt either.
George is conflating the mean and the median

In a Gaussian distribution, like population intelligence is modeled to be for 3 standard deviations, the mean = median. George is correct.

 

That article points out a couple good things.

  1. Group Projects - I LOATHE group projects for all but the most complex assignments. I could do it better, faster, and learn more by completing the assignment by myself.

  2. It seems that in these lower tier schools, the profs are as much to blame as the students, even more so. The student is always going to take the path of least resistance to getting an assignment completed in good order. If that means googling the answer, well then that's what they'll do.

Back to the stats in the OP, these stats should be attached to something, otherwise they don't help anyone make sense of their personal situation.

 
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