Unemployment and Education: A Note

This is a preliminary look at the problem of unemployment in the United States, focusing on the role of education, or the lack thereof, in determining an individual's employment prospects.

It is apparent that we have a number of problems in the employment area. Unemployment has been over 8% for many months, record numbers of people have been out of work for more than a year, many people have become so discouraged that they have exited the labor force. One fact stands out for me in this sea of gloomy numbers: Not everyone has the same risk of being unemployed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announcement of September 7, 2012, included the following statement, "The unemployment rate edged down in August to 8.1 percent. Since the beginning of this year, the rate has held in a narrow range of 8.1 to 8.3 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 12.5 million, was little changed in August."

 

But the BLS also stated, "Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.6 percent), adult women (7.3 percent), teenagers (24.6 percent), whites (7.2 percent), blacks (14.1 percent), and Hispanics (10.2 percent) showed little or no change in August. The jobless rate for Asians was 5.9 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier."

 

Is there good news in that? Since it might as well be impossible to change one's gender, one's race, or one's linguistic identity, it doesn't appear that there's much hope for blacks or Hispanics in the fact that whites have a lower rate, and Asians a lower rate still. It may be hopeful for teenagers that their 24.6% unemployment rate may fall as they get older, but there's a long wait involved, and there may be hazards along the way.

 

But here's another set of figures from the August 2012 BLS report: Total unemployment for those 25 years of age and over was 6.8%, but for those with less than a high school diploma, the rate was 12.0%. For those high school graduates with no college experience, the rate was 8.8%. Those with some college or an associate's degree had an unemployment rate of 6.6%, and those with a bachelor's degree and higher had a rate of only 4.1%.

 

While race and gender may be immutable, and age is uncontrollable, education is clearly something about which an individual can take action. I am not suggesting that everyone with less than a high school diploma should enroll in a four-year college and seek a bachelor's degree, and I'm certainly not suggesting that, if everyone in the United States had a bachelor's degree, the unemployment rate for college graduates would necessarily continue to be around 4%. What I am suggesting is that a lot of people could definitely enhance their prospects of gaining full-time employment by entering into a program of post-secondary education.