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Unemployment Rates Still Favor Degrees
Posted by Carol Coletta on May 10, 2009 |
Note the latest unemployment figures. For those with less that high school, unemployment in April was 14.8%. (And those are the people still looking for jobs.) For those with a high school diploma, the rate is 9.3%. For those with some college, the rate is 7.4% And for those with a Bachelor's degree or higher, the rate is 4.4%.
For those who ask, "Why do we need more people with college degrees? We don't have the jobs for them," please take note. Degrees matter. Everybody has it tough right now, but people without college degrees have it tougher.
That's why, even in a recession, the Talent Dividend matters.
A Question on the Value of Talent
Posted by Carol Coletta on April 19, 2009 |
As the Talent Dividend tour continues, one of the questions we get at every stop is, "With so many lay-offs occurring. why should we be focused on increasing our number of college graduates?"
Some facts in the current Newsweek bolster the answer we always give. Newsweek reports, the unemployment rate for those over 25 with a college degree was 4.3 percent -- half the national rate, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics. For those college-educated and white, the number was 2.3 percent. For anyone without a high-school diploma, the rate was 13.3 percent. "Minorities and the less educated have always suffered more during downturns, but the disparity has become more stark."
The article also points out that the unemployment rate for men is higher than for women, primarily because the sectors where their jobs are particularly concentrated -- construction, manufacturing, industry -- are shedding employees. Note, too, that these are sectors where advanced degrees are not required for many of the jobs.
While this is nothing to celebrate, particularly the hideous differences between whites and minorities, it does reinforce the value of a college-educated population, the case we continue to make on the Talent Dividend tour. …