700,000 Jobs being created, yet 2 million are graduating?

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So, according to the latest jobs report, it looks like the US economy is on track to add 700,000 jobs this year. I also read that there are supposed to be 2,000,000 students graduating this year from college. As a college student who's going to graduate this fall, I'm wondering what are the implications. Does this suggest less than half of all graduates are going to find a job within a year? And, with the increased selectivity that comes with job applicants far out-numbering job openings, does this have implications for those socially and, subsequently, professionally disadvantaged in some way like those with autism, schizophrenia and weirdos in general? For example, since more people are applying to serve in the military, the selectivity has increased and they recently decided to exclude anyone with a formal diagnosis of aspergers.

Last edited by swbluto on 20 Jun 2011, 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well this is what happens when those who supply the jobs export them all to countries where the labor will be cheaper. There is one thing that comes to mind that could provide lot of jobs and that is legalizing hemp and marijuana....obviously there is already a demand for it. But that is just one idea and I am no economic expert. If something is not done soon though things are going to get much worse before they have any chance of getting better.

What's worse is that not all of the 700,000 jobs are going to go to new college graduates. Hell, I'm not even sure most will.

Employers care about experience, not education. They will only hire a new college graduate if they can't find anyone with experience. For people with degrees in engineering, computer science, or accounting, that's okay, because there's enough demand for those jobs. But if you majored in something else, you're likely screwed.

As for low-paying, low-skill jobs, those go to college or high school dropouts. They don't want overeducated people for those jobs.

The sic reality is that it is more profitable to destroy our society than to operate buisness in a socially responsable mannor.
I have been out of college since 2004 there werent career oppourtunities then and it has only gotten worse since.

Bear in mind when they talk about jobs the majority of those are minimum wage positions
One might argue that there is a social responsabilty for government to address this but they have facilitatd getting us here and ignore the evidence tgat austrity has not worked anywhere to bring up the status of the workforce. It only benifits the wealthy and powerful.

Do they now, is that why the are exporting all the jobs to third world countries where they can get cheap labor and exploit the resources?

A lot of them will start their own business or go overseas. Others will continue their jobs as waiters and waitresses. Some will join the military out of necessity.

The variable you are missing is the number of people retiring.

I do not think 2 million people are retiring.

The baby boom generation is pretty big. But, many are opting on continuing in their jobs, because of the decline in value of their stock and real estate portfolios.

This isn't actually true. It's actually false. It is more profitable to have more people employed and paid a higher (living) wage so that they can afford to put their money back into the economy. It costs less money to do things as they're being done right now, but as we can see it is more a matter of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

[quote[Bear in mind when they talk about jobs the majority of those are minimum wage positions
One might argue that there is a social responsabilty for government to address this but they have facilitatd getting us here and ignore the evidence tgat austrity has not worked anywhere to bring up the status of the workforce. It only benifits the wealthy and powerful.[/quote]

I would argue that the government has not ignored this at all. I would argue that this is an intentional feature.

First of all, you didn't respond to anything in my actual post so I don't know why you quoted it.

Second of all, if you're talking about jobs where people with no college were making 50-100 grand a year for blue-collar work, I say good riddance to bad rubbish. Free trade all the way.

Well actually what I said was a direct response to your post....I think a large majority of employers are after cheap labor not experiance or education. But while I am on the topic how do they expect people to get experiance when there are hardly any jobs and how do they expect people with difficulties like having aspergers or depression to make a living when no one wants to hire anyone that is not a perfect model citizen.

Is there any particular reason why? Only people who can afford to get a degree deserve to make even more money? Isn't that how you establish an elite class, by denying access to it for those who aren't already there? I guess that's the essence of capitalism, but the US is showing just how awesome that state of being isn't.

Free trade will bite - is biting - you in the ass. Really, it's amazing how people buy into a system that wants to eat them.

I recently heard on NPR that there are currently over 2 million jobs going unfilled because the companies cannot find qualified people.

Jobs created are not the entire picture.

How are they not finding anyone qualified if there are so many people with college degrees, something tells me they either don't want to find qualified employees or are going about it wrong.

Employers are after whatever costs them the least money. Sometimes that's cheap labor and sometimes it's not. If the job is pretty complex and involved, they don't want to have to spend a lot of their own money getting a person ready to do it. So if the person has already done it somewhere else (most ideal) or has at least gone to school for it (next most ideal), they save a lot of money they would have to spend teaching the job. The smaller the lag time between hiring and competently working, the more money they save, even if they have to pay a larger starting salary. Experience (and to a lesser extent, education) also saves them money because it makes it less likely to have to fire a person for not being able to do the job- since they've done it before elsewhere.

If the job is pretty simple and requires little training (at another job or in school) then their priority is cheap labor. But they lose money if they only hire for lowest salary and then keep getting somebody who can't quite do the job or has to be trained for a very long time.







That doesn't even enter an employer's mind. The don't care if people have a hard time getting experience or have other difficulties because there is such a giant pool of people to choose from who don't. When labor supply outnumbers available jobs, employers don't need to care that person X can't get experience. They have so many other people who do have experience to choose from. That is the perilous situation that the article is describing. There are more people than available jobs and so the employer doesn't need to care. If there were fewer people for the available jobs, they would be more willing to sink the money into on-the-job training or accomodations rather than let the job go unfilled. But there is currently no danger of any job going unfilled.

How to change that balance? I think corporate taxes should be changed to make it more tax-favorable for companies to hire locally rather than shipping out. Maybe tax incentives also for very small (such as even 1-4 person) companies to encourage people to be their own job creators rather than hoping somebody will hire them.