Student explores data over graduate unemployment issues

posted in: Opinion | 0

How would it feel to work your butt off for four years or more at an undergraduate college, graduate with a bachelor’s degree and not be able to find a job afterwards?

At that point, I would be asking myself why I wasted four years in school studying to have future job security to end up in the same place I started.

These questions arise due to an article by The Huffington Post where a statistical analysis done by New York Fed implies graduates have hit unemployment. DataTrek Research stated that for “the first time, recent college graduates are more likely to be unemployed than the base U.S. population.”

The chances of being unemployed after graduation in 2017 have from 3.7% to 3.8%. In 1998 the unemployment rate for graduates was at 2.58%, and over the last decade that rate has increased by 1.22%.

Yahoo Finances says this increase is due to a lack of hiring. A lot of companies are cutting budgets which in turn slows down the hiring process.

The unemployment rate rise is rough for recent graduates because they have student loans that desperately need to be paid. Yahoo finances reports, “recent graduates are holding $1.48 trillion in outstanding student loans.”

Right off the bat, this information is a lot, but taking a closer look there is no need for a freak-out. The graph compares young workers, all workers, recent graduates and college graduates — you’ll notice that near 2010 we had a spike in unemployment but began to decrease after that.

There is not enough data at the moment to say that undergraduate unemployment is going to increase in the next few years. If so, there is not enough to say how rapidly it is going to rise either.

Even if unemployment for undergraduates wasn’t raised, I would still be concerned about where I am going to work after my four-year stint in college.

I don’t think it is unusual to be concerned about future security. If the trend was to start rising quicker I might pack my bags and stop getting myself into unneeded debt.

This article is more of a heads up, but nothing is so alarming in the data to suggest that students need to reevaluate their life.

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