Latest Stats on Class of 2010 Show Slight Improvement in Job Market

June 21, 2010 by  
Filed under College Newswire

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, only 24.4% of the class of 2010’s college grads had jobs upon graduation. Those are not exactly stellar numbers nor a great return on a college education.  However, this is an uptick over last year’s job numbers, when only 19.7% of the class of 2009 had jobs upon graduation from college.  Missing from these job statistics are any indication of the quality of the jobs being offered to recent college graduates. I have no data to back this up, but my intuition is that actual hiring for “career oriented jobs” (i.e. those not in retail or restaurant sectors) is flat, with total job numbers up only because more grads are taking whatever job they can get their hands on.  Anecdotally, the Washington Post reports on 2010 college grads’ desperation for work of any kind:

Instead of debating salaries and benefits, many students set their sights on simply getting a job. They begged for internships. They hyper-networked and filed dozens of applications. They often locked in on early offers rather than holding out for something better.

“People have not waited for the dream job because they don’t think it will ever open up,” said Beverly T. Lorig, the director of career services at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

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