By Don LeeDecember 14, 2009
Reporting from Washington - The unemployment rate dropped last month for men and women, blacks and whites, lifting hopes that the long dry spell in the jobs market may be coming to an end. But for recent college graduates and other young adults, the labor situation didn't just remain dire -- it got worse.For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%.
And data from the Labor Department show that the unemployment figure for college graduates in that age group was 10.6% in the third quarter -- the highest since early 1983 and more than double the rate for older college-educated workers.
Kyle Daley, 22, of Walnut Creek, Calif., provides a grim case study. In June, Daley graduated from UCLA, one of the country's best universities. He received a degree in political science. His grade-point average: a solid 3.5.Since January, he has applied for about 600 jobs, mostly entry-level positions such as office assistant, junior analyst and marketing associate. He has reached out to small firms and Fortune 500 companies in aerospace, entertainment, finance and government, from Alabama to Washington state.
The results: two interviews, one in person and another over the telephone, neither of which panned out. Compounding his financial bind, Daley doesn't have enough work history to qualify for jobless benefits. So he lives with his parents and gets around with mass-transit tickets from his mom.
12 comments:
And?
A 3.5 GPA degree in Political not worth the paper its written on. He might have well as stayed home. All that effort and expense should have been expended getting an Engineering degree.
I told my kids, nieces and nephews.....get a degree in something relevant.
OK. He's 22 years old. He has a degree in civil engineering.
Now what?
He should have worked and gain some valuable experiences by working while going to school. There is a misconception about higher learning and your suggestion DV?
My suggestion?
A complete reinvention of the archaic education / business model invented in the 19th Century.
A disavowal of the implied but seldom delivered class advantages of a university degree.
A determination to prepare young people to compete in the global economy of 2020, 2025, and 2040.
More vocation, less esoterica.
Less W.E.B., more Booker T.
My oldest is studying Mandarin online and planning to install a solar panel in our home this spring.
Although he would be the 5th generation in our family to attend college ... I'm not encouraging him to do so.
Just as I'm not encouraging him to purchase a VCR.
DV,
i hear your critique of the university, esp. the nature of what is (not) taught.
still, if we have 'less w.e.b.', who will be the people to conceptualize the ideas about how (and more importantly why) to be more competitive in 2020...and the social implications of that goal?
that is to say, don't we need more thinking people?!
LOL.
I feel you Chosen. But I suspect we need less thinkers and more doers. I don't have faith in collective ideologies "moving people forward". I think all those ideologies are hustles. Talk. People trying to be God wearing different disguises.
What do I have faith in?
GetAChick.
yes ideology can be manipulative, as can the people who espouse them.
but there are always 'doers'. the question is what are they doing and for why?
But I suspect we need less thinkers and more doers.
that thurr's a false dichotomy...,
^^ 'tis also true...
University education does not equal job training. Are you suggesting everyone go to DeVry?
Interesting D-V--
I would say more thinkers for sure.
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