Underemployment of college graduates is a growing problem?
Two main things I can think of: 1) Too many students entering majors that are related to stagnant or declining industries. Could push advertisement in fields with best employment ability (include figures. Have all departments list employment statistics on majors and careers associated with majors.) Career exploration fairs/seminars. School site and brochures and lower-level classes can emphasize practical skills and jobs that are most employable instead of pure academia. 2) Too many students lazing through college, including not participating in career developing activities (clubs, internships, etc). Happens all too often. Example: 20 journalism students attend a career fair. Only one had a resume on hand and the same person was the only one with experience with the school paper, let alone an internship. How can this statistic be so drastic? The journalism department's professors all regularly encourage students to get experience. Every semester a student registers for classes they have to get advised. Every class they take a member of the school's paper/radio/TV asks for participation. They are encouraged to get practical experience multiple times a semester all through school, and yet the majority do nothing. The easiest thing to do is to require all of it. Have courses require some sort of event participation in a club/extracurricular. Require internships/work/research experience for graduation. I thought of a 3). Encourage departments to change course selections. No jobs for those Pre-Med students that didn't get admitted to medical school? Have the future cohorts have more marketable alternatives while working towards med school. Require research, a co-op, edit curricula to allow non-major but related courses (like nursing or physical therapy) to count for major credit, more interesting chemistry courses (pharmacology, toxicology, forensics).
Why are so many college graduates underemployed?
From my own experience it comes down to a couple of things.Firstly: College has been turned around largely from something where you learn skills for a job to an “experience.” This is not conductive to developing skills which make you marketable. There are very few jobs for individuals with a bachelors in art history or philosophy. However, even in many fields like law are becoming saturated. There are so many students going into professions like lawyers there just aren’t need for as many of them as there are.Secondly: People aren’t developing skills rather pursuing grades. For example, I am getting a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and I know several friends who have already graduated with their Bachelors degree in the same. However, they still have difficulty finding jobs, sometimes due to not applying for internships before graduation. I know some who, a year after, have still been unsuccessful in finding an engineering occupation. This is due to several things:Many fields have many new jobs. However, this is offset but the number of new applicants. You are only going to be hired if you appear to be the most qualified applicant. This might be by a recommendation or a personal interview.Often employers are looking for those who are socially compatible so this is a difficulty particularly in the scientific fields where individuals tend to be less socially adept. It can make it more difficult to get a position if this is the case.For me personally, I’ve found I’m quite bad at interviews. I freeze up and have difficulty answering technical questions. This is especially bad in a field like Engineering as basic questions are those of strength analyses, programming, and fluid dynamics. For those having difficulty with this I would recommend applying for several companies to get better at interviews. It has helped me a great deal.
Since a large amount of college graduates are underemployed, is one of the factors because most did not go to a top university?
Only 10% of total graduates in a year are from top universities. Rest all of them are just normal universities and colleges.The rate of unemployment in India, is due to many factors. Most importantly it is because of quality of education and faults in Educational system.Our system just produce more and more engineers, accountants or Mba graduates. But none of them are real engineers or none have the ability to be an actual HR manager. Skills are important. Not just a degree. We don't actually give importance to abilities or technical skills. Those always are grace mark topics. Here in India, Internships are optional and not at all recommended by colleges. These colleges only focus on marks and top ranks.Unemployment is a major problem all over the world. Most countries have different tactics to overcome this problem. In America, students go for internships in thier favourite fields and pursue a kick start career. Most of the students realize thier intrested scope of work after working in a company as interns. These interns are free or low waged. Such systems overcome most of the unemployment problem by overcoming the experience measurement by most companies.Most science fields such as Architects, Engineering, Bio techs etc require a mandatory one year internship program for the course to complete. Students often go to different countries for this internships.We should follow these qualitative measures too in our education system. A doctor should only practice separate after completing minimum 2–3 years of house surgency under most senior doctors. An Engineer should only be given his degree after working in a company as atleast an intern for atleast a year. A HR manager should only be hired after his work experience as a faculty employee for an year.Thus we can reduce the misconceptions of job hunting and suitable fields choosing parameters. Students should start working and earning thier own from 18 years old. Our next generation should not be just unemployed geeks with high degree certificates.NB: Unemployment rate is actually the failure of ruling government. Government is supposed to provide enough employments to its citizens. We can't do anything about that other than trying for ourselves.
Which one of these people is not underemployed?
A) A woman working as a secretary but doing all her boss's work. B) A part-time worker who wants to work full time. C) A star baseball player in the ***** League (before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball). D) A factory worker who has been laid off and is collecting unemployment insurance benefits.
Why don't many Americans have college degrees?
Because too many Americans have college degrees already. Of the 32% or so that do have college degrees, many are under employed.For example:Twenty-five percent of minimum wage jobs are held by college grads.Fifty-one percent of recent college graduates make $35,000 or less.We have a huge imbalance of Supply (college grads) and Demand (suitable jobs).This disparity is driven by two factors.Beginning around the turn of the century our job market began undergoing a restructuring. The Great Recession of 2008 was the tipping point. While our unemployment number dropped below 5% in 2016, a closer inspection would have revealed that most of these positions were part time/gig positions, not requiring a college degree.As the “college suitable jobs” number was shrinking the number of high school graduates matriculating was expanding from 35% twenty years a go to 45% today. Our society suffers from “College Mania.”Thomas B Walsh's answer to Why does college cost 10 times or more than it did when I graduated in 1976?At the same time we can’t find young people to fill the well-paying jobs that don’t require a four year college degree.http://www.businessinsider.com/h...My local community college has dropped their plumbing certification—no interest. They have an associate’s degree that qualifies graduates for a well-paying job installing and maintaining robots. The class size is THREE—no interest.NoteThe bad news is that many under employed college grads have student loan debt that is very difficult to payoff with their modest salaries.The good news is that the economy is beginning to show signs of recovery. If the GDP ever gets back to 3.5%, we can expect the job outlook for college grads to be rosier.
Are unemployed college graduates just not trying hard enough or is the economy truly to blame for their unemployment?
It is the economy. As a matter of record, full time jobs with benefits are almost a thing of the past. In order to not pay benefits employers are releasing full time workersand replacing them with part timers.There are thousands of workers that have given up looking for a job. Their unemployment benefits are exhausted and they are reduced to sorting cansor mowing yards to get by.If you see the way young people prepare themselves for employment interviewsand work very hard to get good grades, you wouldn't make an assertion thatisn't backed up by the facts. It is the economy and not the graduates that areto blame. Wages in many industries in the US are already lower than the wagesin other countries but the demand isn't there.