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In Some Bay Area Counties, College Grads Have Higher Unemployment (mercurynews.com)
Higher education is supposed to be the ticket to employment. But in some Bay Area counties, workers with a high school diploma have lower unemployment rates than those with bachelor's degrees or higher.
From a report: Experts suggested the Bay Area's backwards numbers, which run counter to the national trend, could be the result of too-few lower-wage workers, many of whom have been driven out by skyrocketing housing prices and the rising cost of living. "We have employers call us all the time (saying), 'I'm looking for low-wage, entry-level workers,'" said Kris Stadelman, director of NOVA Workforce Development in Sunnyvale. But there are few workers willing to take on those positions who don't already have jobs, she said.
In Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate for workers with a high school degree is 3.3 percent, compared to a 3.6 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey, which measures unemployment by educational attainment for workers between 25 and 64 years old. The same situation exists in two other Bay Area counties -- Marin and Sonoma -- where workers with at least a bachelor's degree don't have the lowest unemployment rate.
The trend is starkest in Sonoma County, where workers without a high school degree have a 0.2 percent unemployment rate compared to a 4.4 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. Workers with a high school diploma in that county have an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent. Statewide, workers with a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent, nearly double the 3.5 percent rate of those with a bachelor's or higher.
In Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate for workers with a high school degree is 3.3 percent, compared to a 3.6 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey, which measures unemployment by educational attainment for workers between 25 and 64 years old. The same situation exists in two other Bay Area counties -- Marin and Sonoma -- where workers with at least a bachelor's degree don't have the lowest unemployment rate.
The trend is starkest in Sonoma County, where workers without a high school degree have a 0.2 percent unemployment rate compared to a 4.4 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. Workers with a high school diploma in that county have an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent. Statewide, workers with a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent, nearly double the 3.5 percent rate of those with a bachelor's or higher.
Most college degrees have been worthless for 20 years, this is not news. Entering a trade right after high school and making money during your most productive years is MUCH better than spending that time going into six-figure debt for a worthless piece of paper. Higher education turned into a racket during the 1990's, probably before.
Does this really surprise anyone? You have a bunch of self entitled millennials that have lied sheltered life and been fed a bunch of bullshit by these professors about how life should be. The come out of this indoctrination not having a clue how the real world actually works and with some bullshit degree in liberal arts. Where they think they are entitled to a job in whatever bullshit degree they got.
Then when reality sets in and its ether get a job waiting tables or starve they start bitch'n about some mythical fantasy about being entitled to something called a "living wage." Not realizing at the same time they have brought in low skilled undocumented workers that take the jobs that they think are beneath them and do turn them in to a "living wage." The undocumented do this by not living beyond the means the job provides.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I'm not really surprised by this.. We have a glut of college educated people out there. Hiring those people for fields other than what they earned their degree in is.. risky at best.. If the job they are seeking, at the moment, is not what they have a degree in you can be fairly sure they are going to bounce when a more appropriate job comes along.
That means you're potentially wasting the training you may have to provide. Sure, you might get lucky and they stick around long enough that the training was still a good investment but your gain would be their loss, and that's not an ideal situation either.
The term for this phenomenon is "over qualified". Hiring a guy with a master's in math theory to do plumbing isn't gonna work out in the long term. That guy wants to do mathy stuff and he'll punch out the second he can. I don't fault him for that, of course, but if you're the potential employer that's a problem. Better to just spend the time training the guy with no degree who actually wants to be a plumber. Sure he might go work elsewhere for better wages, but that's at least something you can compensate for (pay more). No reasonable amount of $$ is going to make a math guy happy being a plumber.
Sonoma County is rural. Of course there are more jobs for people without degrees. You don't need that masters in CS degree to pick fucking grapes.
I'm not sure this phenomenon has anything to do with the value of a college education, or the number of H1B visas. It might just be a highly localized issue. Let's keep reading...
See what I mean?
You are welcome on my lawn.