Brighter outlook for grads
Firms hiring, but there’s also competition from last year’s class after virus recession
After a painful year of joblessness, the future has finally brightened for Alycia St. Germain, a 22-year-old college senior at the University of Minnesota.
Having lost a part-time gig at Barnes & Noble last year as the viral pandemic tore through the U.S. economy, she was left unemployed like tens of millions of other Americans. But now, St. Germain has a job lined up — with benefits — even before graduation and in her chosen field of developmental psychology. A family friend established a new child care center in St. Paul, and St. Germain landed a job as an assistant in the infant room.
“This,” she said, “is probably the most positive thing that could happen.”
Not all new college grads will find a job so quickly.
But collectively, this year’s graduating class is poised for better prospects than were the 2020 seniors, who had the misfortune to graduate into the depths of the coronavirus recession. Though the competition will be stiff — this year’s graduates will have to compete, in many cases, with 2020 graduates who are still seeking their first full-time job — employers are ramping up hiring. And many are desperate for workers.
Last week, the government reported that employers added just 266,000 jobs in April, a surprisingly sharp slowdown from the 770,000 that were added in March. Yet much of that lapse reflected a shortage of available workers, economists say. The economic rebound is strengthening so fast that many businesses are struggling to attract enough applicants to fill jobs.
The pace of job openings has fully recovered from the pandemic and is now far above pre-recession levels, including in professional occupations that college students are more likely to seek and that can typically be done from home.
“I don’t think this recession will be as bad for college graduates as previous recessions have been,” said Brad Hershbein, an economist at the Upjohn Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “That segment of the labor market is going to recover faster than other segments where jobs can’t be done remotely.”
Graduating into a recession has historically led to poor outcomes, with research showing that they sometimes bear long-running scars.
Starting a career in a recession can lead to lower incomes for as long as a decade afterward for those graduates, compared with their peers who completed college just before or after a recession.
Lucius Giannini, who graduated last summer from the University of California at San Diego with a degree in political science and public policy, had hoped to find work with the Peace Corps or teaching English overseas.
But when COVID-19 struck, the Peace Corps brought home all its volunteers. And no one was hiring for overseas teaching.
Giannini broadened his job search and in March, he secured a paid marketing internship with a small pharmaceutical company.
It’s not his field of expertise, but, Giannini said, “They figure, ‘You’re young, you understand social media.’ So that’s what I do.”
The internship will be over by the end of summer, so he may be back on the job hunt.
He is also applying to law school.