EPI News-Flash: More College Grads than Dropouts Now Unemployed

releases.usnewswire.com ^

[chance33_98]

EPI News-Flash: More College Grads than Dropouts Now Unemployed

3/17/2004 12:27:00 PM

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To: National Desk

Contact: Nancy Coleman or Stephaan Harris, 202-775-8810, both of the Economic Policy Institute

WASHINGTON, March 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Unemployment levels for workers with a college degree are historically high. In fact, the number of unemployed college graduates has surpassed that of high- school dropouts. Economic Policy Institute economist Jared Bernstein examines this trend in today's Snapshot and shows how labor market problems in the current economy are creeping up the education ladder. Bernstein explains that, for example, the number of unemployed college grads doubled over the recession of 2001 and the weak jobs recovery that followed, compared to the end of 2000.

To read more, please click here: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots Or go to EPI's Web site -- http://www.epinet.org/ -- and, under the first paragraph entitled "Unemployment creeps up the education ladder," click on the words "Economic Snapshot."

For interviews or more information, please call Nancy Coleman or Stephaan Harris at 202-775-8810.

[TXBSAFH]

But the recovery is around the corner!!! (SARCASM OFF)

[Dr. Frank fan]

This just means our country produces a hell of a lot of college grads. (And relatively few high-school dropouts.) If people are going to complain about that, the solution is to stop sending every damn person to college, and/or letting more and more people drop out of high school. Then we'd see these numbers reversed in no time, and (presumably) pat ourselves on the back for having such a great economy.

Insisting that an ever higher fraction of people go to college and then complaining when this high fraction becomes echoed among the unemployed, is the height of idiocy.

[johnfrink]

The number of unemployed college grads doubled over the recession of 2001 and the weak jobs recovery that followed, compared to the end of 2000.

Are we talking about the number of unemployed, or the percentage of them who are unemployed? From the article as posted, it seems she means the former, and that is not really big news. For one thing, each year sees more graduates, so you would expect there to be more unemployed graduates each year, regardless of the unemployment rate.

[Dr. Frank fan]

But the recovery is around the corner!!! (SARCASM OFF)

Your attempted sarcasm is misplaced. There is no poor economic news to be found in this news article. Read my #3. Also, "recovery" from what? What makes you think there's something to "recover" from?

[CasearianDaoist]

Time to send them to a retraining program. Pronto.

[danneskjold]

What is the current unemployment rate?

[KevinDavis]

Sorry I refuse to hire someone that was a Women Studies major if I owned a business.

[mpreston]

Maybe they picked the wrong degree? Break it down by discipline and I bet the data indicates a typical supply and demand issue. Too many 'IT' degrees and not enough medical degrees.

[mpreston]

And too many junk degrees. Time to cut college cost by cleaning out Liberal Arts departments.

[SandRat]

Interesting that only raw numbers are provided. Could it be that most of these numbers come from LIBERAL arts degrees but that those with HARD SCIENCE degrees are getting jobs? Without providing information on the degree types and the numbers in relationship to that criterion the raw numbers are useless to anyone but a Kerry supporter.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Too many Law students? Too many Conservative journalist degrees?

[Dr. Frank fan]

Are we talking about the number of unemployed, or the percentage of them who are unemployed?

One can only assume that by "number" the article means "number", eh? Anyway, the problem with you is, you've committed the cardinal sin of actually thinking about an economic news story, as opposed to reflexively reacting to and emoting about it. Stop that! ;-)

What I find most precious is that the article seems to compare the two raw numbers "college graduates", and "high-school dropouts" (among unemployed). I can't wait to see what kinds of silly fallacies other Freepers will spin from this bizarro comparison.

No acknowledgment whatsoever about the extremely low percentage of people in this country who actually drop out of high school. How difficult is it, really, to finish high school? When my mother was growing up, lots of people dropped out of her high school, to work on the family farm for example. She was the only one to go to college from her graduating high school class. Afterwards she got a job. So, 5 years later, if one would have made this same comparison, one would have probably found that (from my mother's graduating high school class) there were ZERO college-grad unemployed, and (probably) 5-10 highschool-dropout unemployment.

Which all just goes to prove that the economy was much much better back then than it is now. Um, right? ;-)

[the_devils_advocate_666]

There are, however, far more college graduates than high-school dropouts in our current labor force. Last month, for example, there were 12.5 million high-school dropouts in the labor force, compared to 39.9 million college grads. Thus, as shown in Figure 2, the unemployment rate for those with a college degree—i.e., the number unemployed divided by the number in the labor force—is much lower than the unemployment rate for high-school dropouts.

[familyofman]

"Time to cut college cost by cleaning out Liberal Arts departments."

Amputation is normally reserved for the most extreme cases. Are you suggesting that any/all persons with a liberal arts degree are useless and therefor should be eliminated? Or do you have specific disciplines within the schools of liberal arts that should be dropped; history, english, music, philospphy, religion, fine arts, drama.... Please add some specifics.

[Semper Vigilantis]

An Engineering degree asks "How?"
A Science degree asks "Why?"
A Liberal Arts degree asks "Do you want fries with that?"

I work in the IT dept of a manufacturing company and I am constantly amazed by the college graduates we get here that cannot perform the "3Rs". I have found that the best workers are the self taught and OTJT recipients.

[traumer]

Why bother, eh ?

Parents who are guiding their children to study Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering are MORONS ....

[traumer]

Why bother, eh ?

Parents who are guiding their children to study Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering are MORONS ....

[chance33_98]

I am a high school dropout myself :)

[Agnes Heep]

Parents who are guiding their children to study Computer Science, Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering are MORONS ....

I don't agree with that assessment. Even if job opportunities become limited in those fields, the skill set necessary to succeed in them should translate into plenty of opportunities in other areas. People with good math and language skills can always find some kind of occupation to sustain them. It's those without the fundamental skills that find their opportunities limited.