College grads taking low-wage jobs displace less educated

finance.yahoo.com...

More bad news for those currently in college (Im one of those), and also those who don't have a college education.

To sum up the article : There's not as many college coursework required job openings for college grads these days, so college grads are taking the lower paying jobs that those with only a high school education would traditionally take.

Jenkins and O'Malley are at opposite ends of a dynamic that is pushing those with college degrees down into competition with high-school graduates for low-wage jobs that don't require college. As this competition has intensified during and after the recession, it's meant relatively higher unemployment, declining labor market participation and lower wages for those with less education.

The article points out that jobless rates for younger people with either a college degree or just a high school degree has been rising lately.

The jobless rate of Americans ages 25 to 34 who have only completed high school grew 4.3 percentage points to 10.6 percent in 2013 from 2007, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Unemployment for those in that age group with a college degree rose 1.5 percentage points to 3.7 percent in the same period.

Recent college graduates are ending up in more low-wage and part-time positions as it's become harder to find education-level appropriate jobs, according to a January study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Also noted, is that close to half of graduates with a bachelors degree are employed in jobs that don't required a bachelors.

The share of Americans ages 22 to 27 with at least a bachelor's degree in jobs that don't require that level of education was 44 percent in 2012, up from 34 percent in 2001, the study found.

The article relates to the recession in the early 1990's, and mentions that after awhile after the recession, employers began hiring the new college graduates at a greater pace to keep up with the technology boom.

The recent rise in underemployment for college graduates represents a return to the levels of the early 1990s, according to the New York Fed study. The rate rose to 46 percent during the 1990-1991 recession, then declined during the economic expansion that followed as employers hired new graduates to keep pace with technological advances.

If the trend in the early 1990's happens again, and some type of economic boom happens, then we may just have to wait another year or so until this job crisis passes. However, I personally don't really see such a boom happening yet. For example, we had the dot com rising era back then, but I don't really see such at this time. Then again I was pretty young back then.

A year-long survey ending in July 2012 of 500,000 Americans ages 19 to 29 showed that 63 percent of those fully employed had a bachelor's degree, and their most common jobs were merchandise displayers, clothing-store and cellular phone sales representatives, according to Seattle-based PayScale Inc., which provides compensation information.

Another note to mention - It's also not just affecting those with degree's (HS or college), but also those with technical licenses, certifications, etc....

The share of recent college graduates in "good non-college jobs," those with higher wage-growth potential, such as dental hygienists, has declined since 2000, according to the New York Fed study. Meanwhile, the portion has grown for those in low-wage jobs paying an average wage of below $25,000, including food servers and bartenders.

reply to post by buni11687


According to one ATS poster in the near future only the rich can get high paying jobs like engineering due to rising costs of getting an engineering major or other STEM fields.

This kind of thing will eventually lead to serious civil unrest. High unemployment of a large identifiable (and young) subgroup has never been a good sign for civil stability. Being poor, hungry, and feeling hopeless about your future is not something most people accept for the long run in a non-agrarian society.

In many ways, the BA degree has become the rough equivalent of a high school diploma of the 1950's - 1960's. Without a college degree, your odds of employment in a decent (not good) job are greatly reduced. You can thank "social promotion" and "mainstreaming" of students in the government-run schools for that phenomena. Being a high school graduate no longer implies you can read, write, and do math. BS and especially MS degrees have fared better overall if you are in one of the core STEM curricula: math, physics, engineering, comp-sci, chemistry or biology.

OTOH, you can't blame the service sector employers for preferring a college grad to someone who either just went to high school or didn't even finish in high school. A college grad has a higher probability of being able to read, write and do basic arithmetic. They also tend to have social perspectives, interests, and education more similar to their management.

To add to your post, i know of many graduates who are still working for minimum wage in unskilled jobs. Some of them got degree's in things that dont necessarily give you a skill - Just a piece of paper saying that you are qualified to enter into a job related field.

In my 8 months of unemployment last year, I worked out that for an unskilled job i was competing against:

- Other unskilled people

- Immigrants (Who will take on any job)

- Unemployed youth - Kids that have just left school and are not in education.

- Graduates

- People who have been made redundant and there are no jobs in the field they were working in the last 20 years.


More so than this, i actually predict that the current number of jobs will reduce as technology advance's - How many jobs have already been lost due to automated services? No doubt that other fields of jobs will be created but you will need to be skilled in order to have them and my inkling is that kids from comfortable middle-class families will be the first in line.

Capitalism just cannot sustain a fair economic society. Time for people to wake up.

BayesLike
In many ways, the BA degree has become the rough equivalent of a high school diploma of the 1950's - 1960's. Without a college degree, your odds of employment in a decent (not good) job are greatly reduced. You can thank "social promotion" and "mainstreaming" of students in the government-run schools for that phenomena. Being a high school graduate no longer implies you can read, write, and do math. BS and especially MS degrees have fared better overall if you are in one of the core STEM curricula: math, physics, engineering, comp-sci, chemistry or biology.

Unfortunately some of these people cant even add 2+2 so.. ya...

OTOH, you can't blame the service sector employers for preferring a college grad to someone who either just went to high school or didn't even finish in high school. A college grad has a higher probability of being able to read, write and do basic arithmetic. They also tend to have social perspectives, interests, and education more similar to their management.

I would take an old school high school drop out with real world exp than someone who got out of school.. The crap they teach in school today is not what it should be.. As George Carlin Stated... "You got a pencil, get the f**k in there. It's Physics..." True story... At least with the old school drop out I have a better chance in them not screwing up 2+2.

I work at a distribution center which hires through an employment agency,I give out apps to a variety of people from college grads to downright illiterates,what I've found is the students or graduates usually get fired as they can't keep up with the immigrants and drop outs,so most educated ones are short lived

It's a perfect scheme, to get some young and ignorant person to bury themselves in debt in hopes of improving their lives, and then have an over-qualified person forced to work for a slave wage to pay off student loans.

Works the same way with most everything, like going into the military to gain access to education without ever considering one may not survive the stint to even go to school afterward.

If one NEVER goes into debt, well...Kinda hard ain't it ?, unless one is independently wealthy....

The monetary system is badly broken for all but the top echelons of society.

A couple of generations of pushing the mantra "you need a college education" paired with cheap and easy money as loans to pay for those expensive degrees gets us a glut of college of grads with loads of debt and no positions.

What's really funny is it doesnt just suck for them. It's going to suck double hard for people who dont have a degree or a trade skill because now burger flippers arent just competing among other unskilled or uneducated applicants. They're competing against people with 4 year degrees or better.

Eventually you'll need some post=grad credits under your belt just to manage that burger joint and all your staff will have to have a 4 year degree.

Maybe folks with 2 year degrees can still get hired cleaning the bathrooms or sweeping the parking lot.

And guess who will be laughing all the way to the bank? Universities, lenders and good old government.

Can't help but question what education level the first lady's personal assistances have? Surely a degree in geology would get you a job as a gardener and a degree in electrical engineering will qualify you for the job of ironing the pres' undies.

Too much emphasis has been placed on higher education while skill and work ethic has been dismissed. A person has to weigh the cost of a college degree with earning potential.

College degrees are not always worth the paper the diplomas are written on.

starwarsisreal
reply to post by buni11687

 

According to one ATS poster in the near future only the rich can get high paying jobs like engineering due to rising costs of getting an engineering major or other STEM fields.

edit on 7-3-2014 by starwarsisreal because: (no reason given)

Holy smokes, I think I just got mentioned, did you mean me?

SearchLightsInc
More so than this, i actually predict that the current number of jobs will reduce as technology advance's - How many jobs have already been lost due to automated services? No doubt that other fields of jobs will be created but you will need to be skilled in order to have them and my inkling is that kids from comfortable middle-class families will be the first in line.

Capitalism just cannot sustain a fair economic society. Time for people to wake up.

You point summarizes my theory which I have posted before on ATS, here it is in a nutshell

Keeping up with the basics in terms of education and on-the-job work skills won’t be enough for jobs requiring future tech, labor market, skill-sets. The poor and even the middle class (not the upper middle class) will simply NOT be able to keep up with the skill demands for future employment, REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS, STATE LICENSING, etc, while earning wages AND keeping a roof over their heads. In the future these very high costs skills needed to stay “relevant” in ALL labor markets will only be affordable to the rich, or VERY far forward thinking middle class families, willing to sacrifice everything financially to keep their offspring competitive in the larger job market.

I will begin with the usual assertion I hear in regards to the impact of these soon to be real “future-tech jobs”, which contrary to beliefs of some, includes the trades and related proprietary tech that will not be repairable, only "replaceable by a certified/licensed tech".

“Someone has to get paid to fix the robots!”

I often hear this above noted rebuttal to mass automation in the workplace, with big business being hell bent on replacing living workers with machines, BUT it misses a subtle point that ONLY the children of the wealthy will have the opportunity to become TRUE experts in such fields. Let me clarify, through the prior 20th century, a poor kid who studied hard could become a lawyer, accountant, even a doctor sometimes with the right combination of hard work, savings, scholarships, family support, etc or simply went into the trades and learned on the job with pay. HOWEVER, in engineering and technician curriculum’s today, times are changing to favor kids whom have access to expensive software and hardware to “experiment” with and “practice” on before entering college or a particular training program. So when they finally get to college or their apprenticeship, those whom have had lots of free time to “play” with robotics and programming outside of class WILL CERTAINLY outpace their less privileged peer who flips burgers part-time to pay rent and school expenses.

Many people generally do not bother to ask themselves, would future robotics consulting companies prefer to hire low work experienced graduates, whom have demonstrated HANDS-ON, non-professional robotics experience in the form of a “hobby portfolio”; OR a graduate with no “hobby portfolio” experience, whom worked hard to graduate with a difficult major, but didn’t have as much free time to develop skills specifically related to their major and have a long list of work experience, flipping burgers, unrelated to their major? I’m seeing this already happening in many different engineering fields where the young workers being hired today are from wealthy families and great colleges, while at the same time being trained by older folks whom were necessarily not as privileged in their youth, but got through school the hard, 20th century way and were trained on the job, while paid, over long periods of time. Which certainly is no longer an option in 2014 and on because companies would prefer to churn experienced staff rather than train fresh graduates in-house.

Before 1990, 40% of teenagers had part-time jobs while in school. This is a relevant statistic because today only 20% of teenagers in school have part-time jobs. Teens at one time did make up a sizable portion of the workforce and such changes in employment practices.

Although not my primary point, I do think there is plenty of evidence that teens today do not have the opportunity to get part-time jobs, BUT the wealthy ones are beginning to develop advanced skill-sets that COULD be MORE helpful in their future adult careers than say “working at a taco stand after school”. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are very good EARLY examples of people who made use of their free time and access to money, without laboring for pay, to develop specialized skills that could not be learned at a MINDLESS part-time job or even in formal schooling. In the end they leveraged that free time learning into long term careers.

Here is a modern example of a company with a big contract to fill and absolutely no "will" to increase wages to attract experience personnel, nor the desire to train inexperienced ones the job. Instead they put out a story on the web bellyaching:

bridgemi.com...

In the link below this paragraph I have posted an example of what I believe to be a young person from a well off family who majored in robotics at USC, whom doesn’t appear to have had an unrelated part-time job to her major, while in college, possibly had lots time to “experiment” with the technology in her spare time, got a masters degree back to back to the bachelors AND at the end of the day got a job offer at a University sponsored dinner party for robotics majors. NOBODY I went to college with EVER got a job offer at a university sponsored dinner party, I’m sure many Ivy league and top 10 school graduates do however. My point being, these future “robot repair jobs” are going to require smart kids with desire to advance, that went to good schools, had lots of spare time and money to play with the tech outside of school AND got their jobs offered at dinner parties, some of which will be non-paying internships at first. These jobs will not be gotten through sending out blind jobs applications or web job boards, as was done in the 20th century. Basically what this girl is doing for Disney will in the near future be more like what a plumber or electrician of today does, EXCEPT you won’t get trained on the job in a low-pay apprenticeship when at “entry level”. In fact to even be considered for these “future-tech jobs” in the first place you’ll need to have good academic pedigree, lots of unpaid hobby time and 1+ years of unpaid internships.

Here is her story, readers can decide for themselves, my opinion is that this is what a career for a plumber is going to look like in 15+ years:

onedublin.org...

Those whom are going to be rendered jobless by automation/robotics/tech are going to be the least likely to be able to pick up these pieces in the coming era of traditional jobs destruction. Its going to IMPOSSIBLE for the poor to go back to school, get a masters degree in robotics, in full-time only engineering programs, that strongly discourage their admitted students from taking part-time jobs, while favoring students who have both the money and free time and don’t EVER work at an unrelated job to their majors, who then buy expensive robotics hardware/software to experiment with outside of class.

Mark my words this future labor market in the pursuit of “maintaining robots” is going to be the sole domain of rich kids with advanced degrees from good schools because NO ONE is going to train anyone else perceived as lesser, in that kind of job, WITH PAY.

To continue my above point, I believe “rich kid” job mobility is going to be a bigger problem for regular folks beyond what the previous "rich kid" pedigree typically brought in the 20th century. This unfettered access to endless money and time to “explore” academics and hands-on work with no consequences is going to END job mobility of any kind for the lower and middle classes, even those whom have met the typical required higher education and work experience standards. Its a superstar only job market now with no room for middle of road folks.

Up to the 1940 a person could get just about any job with an 8th grade education, but today you need a BA or Masters for entry level.

Why?

Because the government & big business figured out a long time ago that populations would certainly increase over time, but due to technology advancements, the availability of jobs would not expand to meet that population growth. There is a reason they don’t want people dropping out of high school and then encouraging that same high school graduate to attend junior college, then a 4 year university and finally a Masters degree or PhD because it DECREASES the amount of people looking for full-time employment at the SAME TIME, chasing after jobs in a market that CANNOT provide employment for everyone looking for and willing to work.

Look at it this way, when people could get a job with an 8th grade education they went out and did it as soon as possible (opportunity cost). Then jobs got scarcer and the minimum requirement became a high school diploma, adding 4 more years of people NOT Looking for jobs within their cohort. Then jobs got even scarcer and the minimum became a 2 or 4 year college degree, adding an additional 2-4 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort. Now jobs are really scarce and may require a Masters or PHD, adding an additional 2-7 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort.

Basically the way the economy has been structured TODAY, we are looking at young people within their cohort whom are NOT looking for full-time, career type, employment for 6-15 YEARS, beyond K-12, all while they finish school!!!

This has been done ON PURPOSE to keep the number people seeking employment lower. In 1920 after 8th grade everyone who was able went out to look for work and typically found it, that’s simply NOT possible today under any circumstances. Easily accessed welfare will add another 1-3 years of people within a cohort to those “not seeking employment”, not to the specific detriment of society, but to continue to mask the illusion that jobs and upward mobility are still available. So, if someone gets a graduate degree and collects 1-3 years of welfare on top of than, that’s ONE less person competing for scarce jobs. The extra years of welfare then are acting in the same way to the larger economy as the increased minimum education levels for employment. Essentially to decrease the number of able-bodied applicants out on the job market at the same time. This cohort of people "not pursuing full-time employment" also includes those in Prison, Government pensioners and the disabled on government assistance. If everyone needed to go out and “get a job” or “start their own business” TODAY as many “capitalists” suggest these days, we would all be making 0.25 cents a day.

Guess when the largest “recorded” wage increase happened in history for, non-land owing, wage-laborers, post the introduction of fiat currency?

Any ideas?

I’ll tell you, it was after the black death pandemic in the 14th century.

How is that possible?

Because “the owners of capital”, post-black-death-pandemic still needed wage-laborers, but there was a HUGE shortage of able bodied people, so in order for ANY work to get done they had to pay the peasants and other undesirables more, SIGNIFICANTLY MORE. This principle is still at work today, when you take the time to recognize that portions of the population are actively discouraged from participating in the full-time labor market. This is easily done, by throwing people in prison, forcing them to attend formal school longer and allowing more people to claim themselves as disabled or collect both long and short term welfare. The next obvious step for government to further reduce the number of people participating in the full-time labor market is to allow them easier access to welfare or as some have be recommending lately a guaranteed minimum wage or allowance that everyone gets without having to provide labor to an employer first. I’m not going to go into any specific economic theory, but this above noted cohort of non-participants collecting a base amount of guaranteed welfare/allowance will likely keep wages stable for those whom are still working full-time. If all people capable of working full-time entered the jobs the market simultaneously, wages would crash and to a certain extent have, as of 2014.

There has ALWAYS been an economic system at work in the USA that limited the number of able bodied workers whom would be PAID and those who WOULD NOT be paid. The “owners of capital” learned their lesson about labor shortages POST the “Black Death” and figured out from that day forward how to keep wages down and potential available laborers numbers at maximum levels, while forcing them to compete for scarce available paid labor positions.

In the past when there wasn’t enough money to go around to pay wages the “owners of capital” simply brought in more indentured servant immigrants (Irish, Italians, Chinese, etc) or used flat out slave labor (Blacks, Native Americans, domestic prisoners, POW’s, etc). The only difference between now and then is that “owners of capital” can’t LEGALLY have slaves or indentured servants anymore, BUT they have the same pressures as before, to keep their high wages flowing and laborers working even when there isn’t enough “PIE” to go around to pay those laborers for services rendered. The mechanisms today that replaces slaves and indentured servants are the following: longer than needed formal education for basic employment, off-shoring of labor, forced retirement, prisoners and welfare.

The only other choice when these conditions eventually arise will be the expansion of welfare because some rich kids will want to work for fun or enrichment, but there won’t be many job to go around anyway. So, someone has to go and it won’t be them at the end of the day. Another possible policy outcome to all the above is making the legal adult age 25, which could give the middle class time to recover decades of wage loses and lower the likelihood of people willy-nilly having a child that they know legally can live with them until 25. Baby making will drop off a cliff and daily wages will soar if such a law were created.

This has been going on for a while. Just another part of the war on the middle class.

The college tuition bubble WILL burst in the near future. Its been set up to fail at this point.

Yes, of course. Duh.

Now compare the educational skills of a college graduate with those of a high school graduate in, say, 1930. In 1930 graduating from high school was an attainment, something not achieved by everyone. In fact, it was badge of honor. Not only that, a high school graduate could be expected to have English skills, know the proper use of grammar and spelling (and not complain about it), know mathematics well beyond simple arithmetic, and be capable of just about any job out there not requiring advanced study.

And a college graduate? My goodness! Compared to today a college graduate had been through the wringer. he or she had gone through calculus, physics, and chemistry, knew the liberal arts inside out, knew at least one foreign language, often two, and was considered a candidate for nearly any job available. There was no "watering down" of curriculum to avoid math and statistics, no automatic "A" grades for showing up in class. In short, you had a top notch educated person on your hands.

Today you're lucky to get the qualifications of a high school graduate in one who has graduated college. Standards have lowered to that extent. I have been amazed at how poor college graduate writing skills are, for example. It's to the point that you can't allow a letter to go out on company letterhead without review because of so many mistakes in grammar, spelling, and even coherent thought. Not everyone, of course, but enough to make it a problem. Why? because everyone "deserves" a degree.

And it's the same (except worse) at the high school level. A diploma is no longer a guarantee someone is even literate, much less capable of enough arithmetic to balance a checkbook. A high school diploma is an automatic gift for everyone because if they don't graduate, it must be because of discrimination. It couldn't possibly be because of a lack of merit.

So, yes, college graduates are displacing high school graduates not just because there are no college-level jobs, but because college graduates aren't qualified to DO college level jobs. they don't have the skills. And THAT'S why you find secretaries with B.A.s in English and assembly line workers with degrees in anthropology. They are both easy degrees that take a minimum of effort and there are no jobs in those fields anyway.

And on the flip side, no one should apologize for taking a "lower level" job anyway. he's going to have to pay back those student loans somehow. The real question is why he got them in the first place.

reply to post by boohoo


Yes Boohoo I meant you because so right. In fact from personal experience it's becoming an increasing trend. That's why lot's college graduates take minimum wage jobs.

I'm living it. Went and did an enlistment in the Navy, found it wasn't something I wanted to keep doing (rotating shifts, drills, and bilge diving on a ship weren't my thing and that's after too many PNAs when I should have made rate), so took advantage of the GI bill. Went to college getting a degree in something more up my alley where I could solve some technical challenges while also having much more creative freedom. (Graphic design. Learned the software, scripting for web and interactive media, and traditional art and much of the history behind it.)

Turns out none of the things that you get with a bachelor's counts as experience. So it's rendered useless on the employment market. What are supposed to be "entry level" jobs all require 5+ years experience. No way to get it unless you're already in the field.

However I do have a good driving record, so that counts as another kind of experience. It seems like it's the only way I got my current job. Nothing great though. Just working along side retired folks padding their pensions and highschool drop-outs and only making minimum wage doing student transportation. Not all bad (some routes have nice scenery and some students are friendly or pleasant), and the people running the company aren't bad other than being too cheap to put enough back into it (vehicles are all on the verge of break-down in some way or other). It's tolerable other than the stupid traffic (driver's licences are too easily obtained) and the occasional students I get stuck with that really want to make me quit if not rage quit. On the bad days I feel I'm way too underpaid to put up with the B.S.

And even if it sounds easy enough in some regards, I'd still love to leave that job for one where I could crack my knuckles at a keyboard and 3D model and rig something or other on the computer at a modestly livable wage. I need the mental exercise. But I don't see it happening anytime soon since I don't have the contacts for that kind of job locally and I'm not quite standing out above the crowd or pushy enough to get that kind of gig via the internet. (Working at it, getting to old to do what I'm doing for that pay and no other income. And it's getting old as well. But not much panning out or guaranteed at this point.)

schuyler
Yes, of course. Duh.

Now compare the educational skills of a college graduate with those of a high school graduate in, say, 1930. In 1930 graduating from high school was an attainment, something not achieved by everyone. In fact, it was badge of honor. Not only that, a high school graduate could be expected to have English skills, know the proper use of grammar and spelling (and not complain about it), know mathematics well beyond simple arithmetic, and be capable of just about any job out there not requiring advanced study.

And a college graduate? My goodness! Compared to today a college graduate had been through the wringer. he or she had gone through calculus, physics, and chemistry, knew the liberal arts inside out, knew at least one foreign language, often two, and was considered a candidate for nearly any job available. There was no "watering down" of curriculum to avoid math and statistics, no automatic "A" grades for showing up in class. In short, you had a top notch educated person on your hands.

The old "college kids are dumb today" argument...

Before I begin, I am not talking about K-12 education...

Whats changed in college, HOWEVER, is that computers have made access to information easier, so assignments get done quicker with less time spent in the library. What ends up happening is that the professor then needs to give out WAY more assignments circa 2014, than circa 1974. The student of TODAY also works more hours at unrelated pay jobs and unpaid internships than they did 1974. Mostly because tuition and basic living expenses are significantly higher today.

I'm sure you haven't been in college in quite some time or possibly not ever, but the cost of books, hardware and MANDATORY software, far exceeds the cost of a typewriter, lab fees, college rule paper and white out needed to graduate in 1974. Something has to give and its not the curriculum of college per say, but simple overload of a biological construct called the human brain and body.