Young US College Graduates Suddenly Aren't Finding Jobs Faster Than Non-College Graduates (msn.com)
- Reference: 0180612130
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/19/002212/young-us-college-graduates-suddenly-arent-finding-jobs-faster-than-non-college-graduates
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/markets/if-you-re-in-your-twenties-having-a-college-degree-no-longer-helps-you-find-a-job-faster/ar-AA1R4pvK
"But that advantage is becoming a thing of the past, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland."
> "Recently, the job-finding rate for young college-educated workers has declined to be roughly in line with the rate for young high-school-educated workers, indicating that a long period of relatively easier job-finding prospects for college grads has ended," Cleveland Fed researchers Alexander Cline and BarıÅY Kaymak [2]said in a blog post published Monday . The study follows the latest monthly employment data released on Nov. 20, which showed the unemployment rate for college-educated workers [3]continued to rise in September amid an ongoing slowdown in white-collar hiring... The unemployment rate for people between the ages of 20 to 24 was 9.2% in September, up 2.2 percentage points from a year prior.
There is a caveat. "Young college graduates maintain advantages in job stability and compensation once hired..." [4]the researchers write . "The convergence we document concerns the initial step of securing employment rather than overall labor market outcomes."
Their research includes a graph showing how the "unemployment gap" first increased dramatically after 2010 between college-educated and high school-educated workers, which the researchers attribute to "the prolonged jobless recovery after 2008". But that gap has been closing ever since, with that gap now smaller than at any time since the 1970s.
"Young high school workers are riding the wave of the historically tight postpandemic labor market with well-below-average unemployment compared to that of past high school graduates, while young college workers are experiencing unemployment rates rarely observed among past college cohorts barring during recessions."
> The labor market advantages conferred by a college degree have historically justified individual investment in higher education and expanding support for college access. If the job-finding rate of college graduates continues to decline relative to the rate for high school graduates, we may see a reversal of these trends. The convergence we document concerns the initial step of securing employment rather than overall labor market outcomes. These details suggest a nuanced shift in employment dynamics, one in which college graduates face greater difficulty finding jobs than previously but maintain advantages compared with high school graduates in job stability and compensation once hired.
Two key quotes:
"Declining job prospects among young college graduates may reflect the continued growth in college attainment, adding ever larger cohorts of college graduates to the ranks of job seekers, even though technology no longer favors college-educated workers."
"Developments related to AI, which may be affecting job-finding prospects in some cases, cannot explain the decades-long decline in the college job-finding rate."
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/markets/if-you-re-in-your-twenties-having-a-college-degree-no-longer-helps-you-find-a-job-faster/ar-AA1R4pvK
[2] https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2025/ec-202514-are-young-college-graduates-losing-their-edge-in-the-job-market
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-21/americans-with-four-year-degrees-now-comprise-a-record-25-of-unemployed-workers
[4] https://www.clevelandfed.org/publications/economic-commentary/2025/ec-202514-are-young-college-graduates-losing-their-edge-in-the-job-market
Why? (Score:4, Informative)
I pay my electrician, plumber and mechanic about what I pay my attorney per hour. And I'll bet they don't carry 250,000 of student debt.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And when the economy takes a significant downturn, your electrician, plumber, and mechanic will also have significantly more job opportunities than the ambulance chaser.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
What the fuck are you talking about?
Blue collar guys get hammered when the economy takes a dip. That's because people will fix their own shit or jury rig it and there's no building going on.
A guy I know is a defense contractor and he survived the 2008 market crash because he had a government job (of course he's extremely right wing but doesn't really put two and two together about government job and politics)
During the 2008 market crash he had a shitload of work done to his house for basically nothing because of the sheer number of out of work contractors and blue collar guys.
Meanwhile my dumbass who got hit by the downturn and was living in a house at the time had to jury rig shitloads of crap around the house badly. It all worked but it was ugly and I hated doing it.
Hell right now blue collar guys are getting their asses kicked. We've lost 11,000 manufacturing jobs a month since Donald Trump started his tariff wars. That was almost a year ago.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Reuters quoting government stats good enough for you?
[1]https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Or perhaps you'll be asking for a confirmation from "Red State" or pajamas media?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-factory-headcount-falling-despite-trumps-promised-manufacturing-boom-2026-01-09/
Re: (Score:3)
or dealing with violent criminals or psychotic divorced couples.
Unlike an attorney, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Hm. Are you in the US? Here, lawyers usually charge 150-200 bucks an hour on the low end. Blue collar rates are rising (and thats a good thing) but they arent that high.
Billable hours. (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure electricians and plumbers have more billable work hours that lawyers.
Re: (Score:1)
Recently needed an attorney in California for a trust tax issue. Was $400 an hour and worth it sad to say.
Amazing! (Score:2)
Who'da thought?
A four year degree that "says" you know some stuff doesn't translate to a job doing what your piece of paper says you know.
I can be a high school dropout, but I can know programming better than the guy with the paper.
And, I'm sure a lot of places will be wanting people with "unreasonable" amounts of experience although there's no possible way they could have that experience.
$250k? What cut-rate university is that?
Don't major in stupid shit (Score:2, Flamebait)
There's still demand for people who can demonstrate they know stuff. There's many ways to learn stuff, not just via college. You can demonstrate you know stuff via a GitHub repo, a portfolio, or with a piece of paper with signed by the dean of Harvard. Smart companies know it doesn't really matter how. Obviously it gets harder with certain professions. It might be hard to get hired as a brain surgeon with just a GitHub repo explaining what you'd do. Usually people learn engineering disciplines via college.
Re: (Score:2)
Lesbian dance studies honestly sounds more interesting than trig or statistics.
Re: (Score:2)
The truth is most people and by that I would mean like at least 80% are not self learning self starters and that's OK, pedagogy is a real skill unto itself for a reason most humans tend to learn best from other humans.
I think one thing is for sure is that today almost everyone going into the workforce is going to need some sort of post-high-school learning, be that college, trade training certification or apprenticeships as in your example Peter Beck was a toolmakers apprentice which I would count as a type
Re: (Score:2)
Not if their high school offers a meaningful "non academic" track (read: prepare you for the working world rather than prepare you for college). This is not uncommon.
Job posts will reverse the trend soon (Score:2)
Recently I saw the first job post in many years that asked for a bachelor's degree, nothing specific just some degree, for a job that had no need for it. That Great Recession-era shit is coming back and it'll give the graduates a leg up again.
Sure it's elitist opportunity hoarding and a handy way to bake classism into the job requirements with plausible deniability, but it's also a way to cut down the number of job applications for an HR drone to who doesn't know what the hell they're doing to sort through
Re: (Score:3)
The Soviet Union didn't want to pay educated people either. Infact, they killed a good many of them.
Re:Late Stage Capitalism (Score:4, Informative)
ICE is getting around to that...
Re: (Score:2)
Was that guy even a cop? I didn't see any badges or identification.
Re: (Score:2)
What surprised me is that the majority of Americans managed to figure out that Renee good being killed wasn't justified.
Unfortunately it looks like that 33 to 35% that belong to the Trump cult have given up on what their own two eyes saw and just decided to accept whatever the emperor tells them about his clothes. I think there are a few poles though that have it as low as 27% and if that's true there's a few trumpers who believe their eyes over dear leader which I guess is slightly encouraging
Are the college graduates holding out for better? (Score:2)
The non-graduates may be accepting low paying, low stability roles, while the graduates hold out for quality that has become scarce.
The excellent have no problem (Score:2)
Those who believe that the only thing that matters is the diploma and slouch through college, putting in minimal effort, socializing, binge drinking and cheating on exams get a rude surprise
The fallacy of composition (Score:1)
If I stand up, I will get a better look at the stage. Therefore if everyone stands up at the same time, everyone will get a better look.
Obviously wrong.
Here's the less obvious but still wrong version we've seen playing out:
Alice stands up and gets a better look. Bob sees this and he stands up. Now they both have a better look. Charlie joins in. So far it's 3 for 3 on success. Dave notices and stands up. Ed concludes this is full proof when he gets a better look by standing up.
Poor Fred was sitting behind Ed
Welcome to the Trump economy (Score:2)
Job creation numbers are in the toilet. This is another signal the the current regime is a complete economic failure.
The unfolding economic collapse is effecting the majority of households in the US. Fast food franchises are contracting because so many people can't even afford to go out and buy a hamburger. New grads and people at the low end of the economic ladder are in the same boat.
The only ones who are benefiting are the oligarchs. Unless you are a fractional billionaire (net worth more then $100 mil
The economy is in a recession (Score:2, Flamebait)
But 90% of the news media is owned by billionaires and they're not going to talk about it because they're hoping for a third term of trump.
The only thing making line go up right now is the fact that the economy is completely disconnected from wages or workers and the trillions of dollars being pumped into AI bullshit.
But we all know we are in a recession. It's not even a question of being able to feel it you can see it with your own two eyes
Somehow (Score:3, Insightful)
People have no problem getting job doing useless studies.
Somehow... (Score:2)
That's not the takeaway of TFA, though, the takeaway is that it is getting harder to get a job for everyone.