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It’s always reassuring to hear good news about the job market. The Great Recession has been tough to pull through, and we are still in the final stages of making our way out. Cities like Detroit might never fully recover from the fall of the auto industry, and high unemployment rates have affected people all over the country.
But things are looking better. Unemployment rates are falling, companies are starting to hire again, and we are almost at the point where we are not dreading a pink slip or closed doors every time we go in to work.
College graduates can begin feeling a little better about spending the last four years and thousands of dollars in school. A recent article by the New York Times reported that employers are hiring 19% more college graduates than last year.
Graduating from college is tough. Not just because it requires hours of cramming for tests, late nights, early hours and lots of stress. But also because once college is over, you are now forced into the real world, where bills need to be paid and food needs to be put on the table. Coming from the university into an uncertain job market can be disconcerting and can almost make you want to never leave school. Unless you’ve got Mommy and Daddy paying all your bills, if you can’t make it out there, you just might end up on the street.
So to hear that statistics for employment upon graduation are improving as we are pulling out of the recession is wonderful news. Especially when compared to last year’s numbers that showed 95% of graduates with bachelor’s degrees either getting jobs or continuing their education. An improvement on 95% is almost an A+.
Average starting salaries for graduates are rising as well. This depends upon your field of study, but overall, college grads are getting paid more fresh out of school than they have been in recent years. The demand and pay are even better for those who studied finance, accounting, information technology and engineering.
Of course every silver lining has a touch of grey (to quote the great words of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter). Some fields do not fare so well. Government hiring has gone down 25%, so those looking for work in the public sector might be having a tough time. Teaching jobs are also hard to come by, with schools still cutting back on the “unnecessary” courses like music and art.
Things may be getting better in some areas, but overall it still seems like a struggle out there. Inflation keeps going up, but there are still plenty of folk who have been earning $10 an hour for the past decade with no raise. Gas is another story in itself. When will it end? $5.00? Or will the prices just keep going up until the majority cannot afford to drive anymore? What then?
It’s too soon to say that college grads have one less thing to worry about, but at least they don’t have to worry quite as much as they did a few years ago.
Related articles
- How Does Your Degree Measure Up? (jobnab.wordpress.com)
- The Lost Generation? Many Unemployed Grads Don’t Have Skills Employers Need (curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com)
