Launching a career after four years of college is extremely difficult to do these days. Andrew Sum, professor of economics at Northeastern University, estimates that less than 50% of recent college graduates held a job requiring a degree, based on data he collected during the first eight months of this year.

 

Sum also found that seven out of the top 20 occupations employing the largest number of young, college graduates (25 and under) did not require any type of college degree to be employed.

 

“There were 175,000 young college graduates working as cashiers, retail clerks, and customer service representatives versus only 146,000 employed in all computer professional professions and all types of engineers combined,” Sum wrote for The Huffington Post. “There were twice as many four year college graduates working as waiters, waitresses, and bartenders (80,000) as there were engineers (37,000). There were more college graduates working in office related jobs and as bank tellers than in all computer professional jobs (148,000 vs. 109,000).”

 

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, only 25% of 2010 college graduates who applied for a job actually received one. Three years ago, more than half of the 2007 class became employed.

 

The unemployment rate for those 25 and under is currently 9%.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

The Nation's Recent College Graduates Face Significant Labor Market Problems (by Andrew Sum, Huffington Post)

New Grads Struggle to Put Education to Work (by Joe Jasinski, Indianapolis Business Journal)