Eboni Khan

College graduates’ non-recession


The charts in the article paint a pretty dramatic picture...





So a College education is expensive and does not pay like it used to, but a High School education does not pay at all anymore.

SpaceCase

How much of that chart is skewed by companies that now require degrees for jobs that were once "entry level" and didn't require one before?

I'd love to see a pay chart of people getting hired with degrees now versus before the crash.

My experience is that there's a lot of opportunist companies out there that require degrees for $10-12 hr jobs nowadays.

Adam Zaius

Having a degree probably helps with getting a job, any job - but I suspect the pay chart is not too radically different in STEM fields.

Right now, in tech - it's hard to find good quality engineers who really know their stuff; there's a real shortage out there.

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Misty Harley

from what I understand, there is also a shortage for basics like plumbers, electricians, builders, etc and those that are in the field, make damn good money because of the shortage of people going into the these fields of work.

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Sonja Aeghin

There's a real problem brewing in regard to the skilled trades...most plumbing/gas/HVAC workers I see are over 40 with some even in their 60s. I don't know whether the trades have become stigmatized in the relentless push for having a college degree. The trades at most just require a certification form a technical school, or one could even get in on the ground level by apprenticing (at least for building/framing.)

Eboni Khan

That is part of the story. There are so many people looking for work, you can request everyone have a college degree, and get away with it. Which is why I added my point; a degree doesn't pay like it used to but at least it pays. You could live a nice life and support a family without a college degree in America, and now it is impossible basically. What we are seeing now is a High School diploma only is a one way ticket to poverty.

I think trades are important and the amount of time and skill it takes to become a Union electrician, carpenter,plumber etc is the equal to a college degree in my opinion. It takes year of hard work. There is a shortage of these types of workers, I know welders is a big area where there is a shortage. There is an issue with 5th rate trade schools aggressively advertising to students and not providing the proper training, but that is another topic.

Beebo Brink

The single biggest issue we've had as home-owners is that every competent workman that we've needed for home repairs is overbooked. They have more work than they can handle. And yes, a scary percentage of them are older with no one following in their footsteps.

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Beebo Brink

Our company is growing steadily and we've been adding system architects and programmers every year... or trying to. We've always had trouble finding the combination of solid skills and people with a can-do attitude. There is no dead wood at our company and after the initial training, no one will hold your hand or constantly prod you to do your job. You're expected to manage your own time well.

Over the years, we've been lucky if 2 out of 3 hires lasts over three mos. Sometimes it's closer to 1 out of 3. Either they don't have the skills they claimed or their character flaws end up sabotaging then (we expect people to ask questions constantly and if their ego gets in the way, they're going to make a doozy of a mistake eventually).

Here we are in the middle of a recession, offering a good job in a growing company (that is managed better than any I've ever worked at before) and we are constantly scrambling to find new hires that meet our standards. If people aren't going into trades any more, and they're quite obviously not going into tech jobs, where are they? What are they doing?

Memir Quinn

Honest answer Beebo? I think the ones fresh to the work force are by and large working at 7-11 or as delivery drivers for pizza hut, and living at home with mom and dad. Then on the weekends trying to emulate the lives they see on jersey shore.


Or, I may just be embittered and jaded.

Cindy Claveau

Skipping over the jersey shore part, I do think there is a significant percentage of new grads who just don't know how to look for a job.

My daughter graduated with 2 degrees last year and just thought the employers would show up at her campus to invite her to work for them. It took months of being unemployed (and driving me nuts) before she finally arrived at the conclusion that she needed to spruce up her resume, attend job fairs, look up companies in the phone book and GO SEE THEM IN PERSON, and actively campaign for herself before she found a good job.

That was a whole after-school education in itself.

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Beebo Brink

Judging from some new hires at the younger end of the spectrum, they have no idea what to do once they land one either.

But most of our hires are above entry level. We need highly skilled, highly experienced people. Most of them are siphoned into the Washingonton DC area, which has a low unemployment, and there just aren't enough to go all the way around.

My own very personal opinion is that one of the best investments a country can make is providing a good, rigorous college education or trade school training to any student who can meet standards of entry. It's the backbone of any industry you can name.

But then, I'm a pinko commie socialist fag.

Polo

You'd think this would be common sense. But in the US, at least, we have a whole school of thought holding that: if someone, anyone, gets something for free (even education), that is the work of the DEVIL and will lead to our nation's ruin.



(I suspect these people never got over their childhood experiences of thinking their brother got the bigger slice of pie, or their sister got a nicer doll. And they can't get past it.)

Eboni Khan

I think the cost of education or making sure people receive an education is almost a different subject. Even if education was free, it wouldn't solve the issue at hand.

Not everyone has the work ethic to have a trade. College clearly is not for everyone. If you are a Union Contractor/Roofer/Bricklayer/Electrician/Carpenter/Plumber you have to have a really good work ethic, be able to think on your feet, be decent at math and science, stay in moderate physical shape. You also have to have decent understanding of business. These skills are not easy to find in people. It is different than having a bachelors degree but it is on the same level, (and I would say overall harder to maintain a career over a lifetime).

It used to be that someone of moderate to low intelligence with I dunno not the best personal skill set could get a factory job, and make a moderate living. Even if they had a poor work ethic, if they lived in a town with one factory, there were usually several factories and they could bounce around and get temp work if necessary. Those days are over.

Almost all the jobs created for people at the bottom are service jobs, that do not pay a living wage. I know the economy is bad but where I live they are building new strip malls each month and they are being filled with retail stores. If you are retail manager you can make a moderate living, but for everyone else working at the store, not so much.

The recession put a lot of people out the job market and we have created a larger lower class, which is now filled with people that would have been working class.

What are we going to do with the people at the bottom of the skills pool?

Beebo Brink

Tha's a very good question and one I have been pondering for years. We've gutted the industries that could make good use of semi-skilled labor. Even if turning ourselves into the "industry leaders of ideas" was a feasible replacment, not everyone fits into that scheme.

Wrong Weatherwax

And its why, despite an approaching second degree why I am likely to remain in the skilled labor force instead of transferring to a more "white collar" field. As a GC, a competent finish and restore carpenter, and a competent machinist I can make a killing just doing "shut downs" at plants, even for full closure or just for retooling. I don't particularly like doing residential but I do it, but that has far more to do with dealing with home owners who have no respect for the trades and want to complain about every small item of cost to fix their precious.... whatever it is. And don't get me started about costs when I call in my HVAC sub, or plumbing, or a welder.

Mike Rowe gave an excellent speech before one of the Congressional subcommittees about the issue....

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Desmond Shang

I put my fancy degree on the shelf in 2001; yes I still have it but haven't been employed by anyone but myself in well over a decade now.

There's not much left of the conservative in me, after 2000~2010, but one shred still remains: the radical concept of BUILD YOUR OWN JOB.

Wandering around the landscape looking for someone hiring that is:

a) more desperate than yourself, but for workers
b) has money
c) has a means of making more money, except... they have too much work
d) is willing to 'hire' you over countless others
e) and will most probably make a fortune off your broken back, that,
f) would have made *you* rich instead, except you surrendered at step a).

... doesn't this sound kinda... bad? Anyone?

Best to short circuit the whole process and go into small biz. Only one rule: you'll actually HAVE to be competent, not just sorta pretend. If not, you are gonna get real hungry.

Aliselia Aeon

When I was out of work in the past, I applied for anything and everything (almost). I would have taken almost anything, but I was often told I was over-qualified because of my degree.

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Sonja Aeghin

True, and there is another problem which is cultural: we have a generation coming up that positively eschews the amount of physical labor the trades require. How to overcome the stigmatization of hard labor?

Beebo Brink

I can't speak for Eboni, but the focus of my concern is the people who are not intellectually or emotionally capable of doing this. Yes, there are some people for whom this might be an answer, but it is by no means THE answer to this issue.

Your colledge education is more a marker of a certain kind of cultural knowledge and perspective that probably would have provisioned you well regardless of formal education level.

I look around me at the people walking the street in my neighborhood of West Virginia, and few if any are the stuff of self-employed entrepreneurs. They are stretched about as far as they can go by holding down a job at 7-11 or Walmart. This isn't a slam -- it's the reality. Not everyone has the highest potential as measured by our relentlessly capitalistic system. Some are shiftless, but others are basically good people, love their family, but are of moderate to low understanding of how the world works.

Their only options are service jobs that pay shit. One of my next-door-neighbors is a woman who walks to the shift at the local 7-11 because she can no longer afford a car. She lives in a house with her brother and sister, and between the three of them they barely get by. Bobbie works when he can, but his health is so poor that I really will be surprised if he last another year. The middle sister looks about 20 years older than she is, and she's a nice enough woman with very bad taste in men (which is how she lost some front teeth).

These are not people who will be helped by your advice.

Eboni Khan

Beebo and I are thinking about the same kind of people. In the past, these people in America could live a decent life, that is no longer possible in a post-modern America.

What are we going to do about these people? We don't have social safety nets for long term unemployed people and the unemployable. Create your own job doesn't apply here.

Isablan Neva

I've been asking this question for the past couple of years on some of the bigger political blogs and there's still crickets chirping.

The bottom half of the US citizenry is caught in the massive changes being brought on by globalization and the technology revolution. Eventually wages in China/India will rise enough to eliminate the advantages of off-shoring basic labor, but that's still ...I dunno...5 years off?

Even when some of those low end jobs return here to the US, it won't be enough to match our population growth. Not only do we have a wage disparity, we have significant environmental regulations that other countries aren't having to follow - yet. The answer isn't to remove our regulations, the answer is for emerging market countries to start caring about their air, water, and livestock. A growing middle class in those countries will do just that. They'll want clear air and water for their children, they'll want responsible food production for their families.

But until then, it's a bumpy ride.

What hasn't helped is the Republicans shutting down every single attempt to stimulate the economy and jobs in their desperate quest to make Obama a 1-termer. So much is going to happen one way or another after November when this logjam finally breaks and GOP's 4 year mission either fails or succeeds. I think if Obama wins his 2nd term there will be a big push to finally get an infrastructure jobs program off the ground. If we can't employ our people making stuff, we should at least be able to employ them fixing stuff.

The US social safety net was put into place for exactly the scenario that we're living through right now. Imagine if there were no unemployment insurance. No welfare. No food stamps. No disability insurance. We'd be seeing nightly images of people lined up for bread and other household staples.

I have a whole, longer set of thoughts on the emerging two-class society of America but I shan't bore you all with another wall of text.

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Desmond Shang

It's not for everyone, certainly. I'm not suggesting it is. But I'd say it would work spectacularly for a lot more people than ever dare try to create their own job, or business.

People walk around in fear ~ yes, legitimate fear of hunger, a place to live, all those things. But fear has an *incredible* cost. How do you sell the future of this country out from under our children, to their parents? Fear. How do you sell wars? Fear again. How do you sell wage slavery? Same way.

The last person most people will believe in, is themselves. And it's easy to see why. There are hundreds of millions of others telling us what we can't do, every day. Ready and willing to push all of us down. You aren't truly defeated until you believe you are inferior, incapable, or otherwise unworthy.

Our recession lingers, in huge part, because we've lost a lot of faith in each other. It's simply not true ~ it's a sell job. We are just as capable of a population as we were in 2007 or 2008. Young people and teens, are just as generally directionless now as ever they were, for thousands of years. Who profits from all this fear? Wall street. Warmongers. Anyone writing a paycheck.

I'm simply not buying in to fear of the future. It's too expensive! And as a product, frankly, it sucks. Jobs certainly aren't secure any more. At least with a small business, you can waffle along a good long while. With most jobs, you are incomeless in mere months, or even overnight. I don't have the list here but someone once made a list of businesses that started in recessions. A lot of famous names. Now imagine all the stuff that never happened, because the would~be founder lived in fear, grimly cocked his paper hat and went back sullenly to the fries oven.

And for those that truly are a mess, there's the safety net. Which is not going to break the United States, and never would. Have a look.

Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go? — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

We just might sit out of a war or two instead, which isn't always a bad thing. There are plenty of morally compelling catastrophes we turn a blind eye to already, every year. The ratio would barely change if we stayed away from one or two more.

DanielRavenNest

The whole concept of "you need a job to make a living" will have to change. We already produce all the food needed in the US with less than 2% of the population, due to the massive efficiency of farming. Manufacturing is heading in that direction, and once shelf-stocking robots are cheaper than humans, so will a lot of retail jobs.

We are heading towards an era when full employment is not needed to provide all the physical stuff we use. If you allow massive unemployment with no changes to the system, you are just asking for massive social unrest. Alternatives include cutting the basic work week to distribute the remaining work, or providing basic subsistence at an unemployment insurance level for everyone, regardless of duration. Those are just examples, there are others. I don't think doing nothing is a viable answer in the long term.

Jura Shepherd

It's usually 4 to 5 years or so apprenticing/studying. It's not easy, but they do earn some pretty good scratch on their way to journeyman.

Brenda Archer

^^^This.

But people are so stuck on having a fit if someone else gets anything at all with no effort or less effort. If everyone in my neighborhood was out of work tomorrow, I'd WANT them on payments and food stamps. Why? Because I want to be able to park my car at night without having the windows smashed and the gas siphoned!

The punitive mentality seems to think there's a Big Daddy Cop they can always call on to eliminate the evildoers. No, what we'll get instead of redistribution to free citizens is a giant gulag of poor prisons, just because most people can't stomach the idea of helping someone they can't also punish.

I ran headlong into this mentality when I was homeless with cancer. It was all my fault, so goes this logic. We'll help you, but you will pay for it with emotional abuse. After all that, going back to the workforce as a temp and living in a crash motel was a definite improvement. No doubt how our paymasters want it! Never mind that going back to work was the end of my medical care! My health is paying for it now.

But until you actually live in a neighborhood where, if you park your car you wonder if it will still be there in the morning, you don't understand other people's poverty is everybody's problem.

It's going to get worse before it gets better. Americans don't realize what mass poverty DOES to a country.