Unemployment Case

Regardless of an influx of new jobs being added to the economy, there is still a high level of unemployment nationally as a result of recession. In 2012 the job market seemed to have a period of growth, however these areas of growth have not been impacting the unemployment rate very drastically. This unemployment problem seems to be especially relevant to recent college graduates who seem to be struggling to find employment even with their newly earned degree. College graduates are finding it difficult to land jobs that require their bachelor’s degrees and are settling for mediocre, minimum wage jobs straight out of college. Often, when graduates do find jobs it has to do with luck or the people that they have come to meet along the way, not necessarily through merit or skill level. Although these college graduates may not be fairing as well right after graduating, evidence shows that it is still more beneficial to have the degree than not in this economy.

In 2012 335,000 more jobs than previously estimated were added to the economy and an additional 150,000 in the last quarter, however there are still 12.3 million workers deemed idle. Although there has been some mild improvement, “job growth has been modest compared with previous recoveries, and the unemployment rate has been stuck just below 8 percent since September”(Rampell). When the recession hit there was a huge jump in the unemployment level due to people getting laid off and then having to cross over to different industries. When people made these switches, their skill levels were not proportional to the employers needs and people remained unemployed. However, after a few years, the level of skill has increased tremendously due to more people getting a college education. Now that people are more inclined to get an education past high school, sometimes a bachelor’s degree does not seem like enough when someone else has continued on to get a master’s degree. Increasing education across the board should “facilitate the movement of workers among industries and occupations, making the labor market work better and reducing the structural unemployment rate from industrial and occupational mismatches” (Tyson). The discouraged workers count has also continued to grow at a very high rate and now on average unemployed prospects have been searching and jobless for 35 weeks at a time (Rampell). That is why it has been suggested that a big reason why the unemployment numbers are so off in comparison to job growth is because the effort from the labor force has diminished due to the length of time it takes them to find employment. When active members of the community are not looking for a job they are no longer identified as an unemployed person, thus increasing the ratio of unemployment. When looking more specifically at the recent college graduates and employment, there were 1.7 million people aged 18-29 who had been out of work for more than a year, which puts the combined employment