But this is also happening in a growth economy,
never mind the sour ones in most advanced
countries. It's already the case in China that
many (perhaps most) of their thousands of
graduates -- even in engineering -- are not
finding jobs that matches their credentials or
their talents. The irony is that, just as skill
standards are rising in today's high-tech
economy, the proportion of those necessary to
produce the tradable goods is still contracting.
It's been doing so ever since the medieval days
when something like 70% of the population were
growing food and supporting the 20% remainder
(the craftsmen, the church, the aristocracy). At
mid-industrial revolution (19th century) the
value-adding part (innovators plus factory
workers) had shrunk to about 50% -- with a new
middle class and larger armies and governments to
support. Today the innovators and producers of
tradable goods and services is probably around
30% and, probably, still shrinking.
Obviously, this trend can't go on forever.
However, the present 70% of non-value adders in
the advanced countries with increasingly
dumbed-down jobs and with declining real, rather
than nominal, wages (as of the last three
decades) then they are supplying their own
solution by reducing the number of their
children. If, in the advanced countries, this 70%
also persuade their government to restrict
immigration from the poor of the world, then
their populations will decline (as they are
already close to doing) and the essential
value-adders of the economy will once again rise
from whatever level they will have stabilized at
during the next 30 years or so. As for the
value-adders they'll have no problem in having
enough children to replenish their numbers if
they want to. Even if the ladies don't want the
bother of personally producing the requisite
numbers of children -- namely about 2.1 each --
then they will certainly be able to pay enough
surrogate mothers. Also in vitro gestation might
well be possible within the next 30 years.#
Keith
At 14:40 19/05/2011, you wrote:
From NY Times May 18, 2011
Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought
by the sour economy is more widespread than just
a few careers led astray or postponed. Even for
college graduates the people who were most
protected from the slings and arrows of
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>recession<https://www.readability.com/articles/xnuuaez9?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-1>1
the outlook is rather bleak.
Employment rates for new college graduates have
fallen sharply in the last two years, as have
starting salaries for those who can find work.
Whats more, only half of the jobs landed by
these new graduates even require a college
degree, reviving debates about whether higher
education is worth it after all.
I have friends with the same degree as me, from
a worse school, but because of who they knew or
when they happened to graduate, theyre in much
better jobs, said Kyle Bishop, 23, a 2009
graduate of the University of Pittsburgh who has
spent the last two years waiting tables,
delivering beer, working at a bookstore and
entering data. Its more about luck than anything else.
The median starting salary for students
graduating from four-year colleges in 2009 and
2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those
who entered the work force in 2006 to 2008,
according to a
<http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Work_Trends_May_2011.pdf>study
released<https://www.readability.com/articles/xnuuaez9?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-2>2
on Wednesday by the John J. Heldrich Center for
Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
That is a decline of 10 percent, even before taking inflation into account.
Of course, these are the lucky ones the
graduates who found a job. Among the members of
the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at
least one job by this spring, when the survey
was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of
graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007.
(Some have gone for further education or opted
out of the labor force, while many are still pounding the pavement.)
Even these figures understate the damage done to
these workers careers. Many have taken jobs
that do not make use of their skills; about only
half of recent college graduates said that their
first job required a college degree.
The choice of major is quite important. Certain
majors had better luck finding a job that
required a college degree, according to an
analysis by Andrew M. Sum, an economist at
Northeastern University, of 2009 Labor
Department data for college graduates under 25.
Young graduates who majored in education and
teaching or engineering were most likely to find
a job requiring a college degree, while area
studies majors those who majored in Latin
American studies, for example and humanities
majors were least likely to do so. Among all
recent education graduates, 71.1 percent were in
jobs that required a college degree; of all area
studies majors, the share was 44.7 percent.
An analysis by The New York Times of Labor
Department data about college graduates aged 25
to 34 found that the number of these workers
employed in food service, restaurants and bars
had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though
the sample size was small. There were similar or
bigger employment increases at gas stations and
fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi and limousine services.
This may be a waste of a college degree, but it
also displaces the less-educated workers who would normally take these jobs.
The less schooling you had, the more likely you
were to get thrown out of the labor market
altogether, said Mr. Sum, noting that
unemployment rates for high school graduates and
dropouts are always much higher than those for
college graduates. There is complete displacement all the way down.
Meanwhile, college graduates are having trouble
paying off
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>student
loan<https://www.readability.com/articles/xnuuaez9?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-3>3
debt, which is at a median of $20,000 for graduates of classes 2006 to 2010.
Mr. Bishop, the Pittsburgh graduate, said he is
terrified of the effects his starter jobs
might have on his ultimate career, which he
hopes to be in publishing or writing. It looks
bad to have all these short-term jobs on your
résumé, but you do have to pay the bills, he
said, adding that right now his student loan debt was over $70,000.
Many graduates will probably take on more
student debt. More than 60 percent of those who
graduated in the last five years say they will
need more formal education to be successful.
I knew there werent going to be many job
prospects for me until I got my Ph.D., said
Travis Patterson, 23, a 2010 graduate of
California State University, Fullerton. He is
working as an administrative assistant for a
property management company and studying
psychology in graduate school. While it may not
have anything to do with his degree, it helps
pay my rent and tuition, and thats what matters.
Going back to school does offer the possibility
of joining the labor force when the economy is
better. Unemployment rates are also generally
lower for people with advanced schooling.
Those who do not go back to school may be on a
lower-paying trajectory for years. They start at
a lower salary, and they may begin their careers
with employers that pay less on average or have less room for growth.
Their salary history follows them wherever they
go, said Carl Van Horn, a labor economist at
Rutgers. Its like a parrot on your shoulder,
traveling with you everywhere, constantly
telling you No, you cant make that much money.
And while young people who have weathered a
tough job market may shy from risks during their
careers, the best way to nullify an unlucky
graduation date is to change jobs when you can,
says Till von Wachter, an economist at Columbia.
If you dont move within five years of
graduating, for some reason you get stuck where
you are. Thats just an empirical finding, Mr.
von Wachter said. By your late 20s, youre
often married, and have a family and have a
house. You stop the active pattern of moving jobs.
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
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