WASHINGTON (AP) — With college commencement ceremonies
nearing, the government is offering a modest dose of good news for
graduating seniors: The job market is brightening for new grads — a bit.
But
finding work — especially a dream job — remains tough for those just
graduating. Many are settling for jobs outside their fields of study or
for less pay than they’d expected or hoped for.
The Labor
Department on Tuesday said the unemployment rate for 2013 college
graduates — defined as those ages 20 to 29 who earned a four-year or
advanced degree — was 10.9 percent. That was down from 13.3 percent in
2012 and was the lowest since 7.7 percent in 2007. The drop reflects the
steady recovery in overall U.S. economic growth and hiring.
But
unemployment for recent grads was still higher than the 9.6 percent rate
for all Americans ages 20 to 29 last October, when the government
collected the numbers.
"I’m finding that all these entry-level
jobs are requiring experience I don’t have or degrees that are just
unattainable right out of college," says Howard Rudnick, 23, who
graduated last year in political science from Florida Atlantic
University and wound up earning $25,000 a year working for an online
shoe company.
"The worst part is that I’m afraid at some point I
may have to go back to school to better myself and take on more debt
just so I can get a better-paying job."
Over time, though,
Americans who have college degrees are still far more likely to find
employment and to earn more than those who don’t. And while
opportunities for new college grads remain too few, they’re increasing.
"It
really is getting better," says Jean Manning-Clark, director of the
career center at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. She says
more automotive and steel companies are now looking at the school’s
graduates, joining energy and technology companies that have been
actively recruiting for several years.
Last year’s female
graduates fared better than men: 9 percent were unemployed as of October
last year, compared with 13.7 percent of men. Analysts note that the
economy has been generating jobs in many low-wage fields — such as
retail and hotels — that disproportionately employ women
"It seems
like the jobs that are growing fastest are jobs that are low-wage jobs,
service jobs," says Anne Johnson, executive director of Generation
Progress, an arm of the liberal Center for American Progress that
studies youth issues.
Other fields that attract women — including health care — weren’t hit as hard by the recession.
Philip
Gardner, director of Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment
Research Institute, says women also "have skill sets that employers
want… They have better communications skills. They have better
interpersonal skills. They are more willing to work in teams."
Alexa
Staudt’s job search lasted just three weeks. Before graduating from the
University of Texas last spring, Staudt, 23, had landed an
administrative position at an online security company in Austin.
"I
had marketable skills from my internships" in event planning, marketing
and copy-editing and experience working as a receptionist for a
real-estate firm, Staudt says.
She’s happy with the job and the chance to stay in Austin.
Yet
the McKinsey & Company consultancy last year found that 41 percent
of graduates from top universities and 48 percent of those from other
schools could not land jobs in their chosen field after graduation.
Even
in good times, many college graduates need time to find a good job. But
researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concluded earlier
this year that "it has become more common for underemployed college
graduates to find themselves in low-wage jobs or to be working part
time."
The Labor Department reports that 260,000 college graduates
were stuck last year working at or below the federal minimum wage of
$7.25 an hour. That’s down from a peak of 327,000 in 2010. But it’s more
than double the 127,000 in 2007, the year the recession began.
"Every
way you cut it, young college grads are really having trouble — much
more trouble than they used to have," says Heidi Shierholz, an economist
at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "The labor market is not
producing decent jobs."
In a study last year, economists at the
University of British Columbia and York University in Canada found that
college graduates were more likely to be working in routine and manual
work than were graduates in 2000; technology was eliminating some
mid-level jobs that graduates used to take. The result is that many have
had to compete for jobs that don’t require much education.
Their sobering conclusion:
"Having
a B.A. is less about obtaining access to high-paying managerial and
technology jobs and more about beating less-educated workers for the
barista or clerical job."
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