Why this job market is bad match for the college degree, recent grads

When Jenny Flora Wells graduated from Ohio State University in 2021 with her master’s degree in social work, she applied for 400 jobs. From that crop, she landed three interviews.

“I was told an MSW was a golden ticket and that I would be sure to find a job. I did everything by the book, had a 4.0 GPA, worked with career services, and quadrupled-checked my resume. I did everything by the book, and I still couldn’t land a job,” said Wells.

Wells now helps other recent grads traumatized by their job search. She is a licensed social worker who practices in Los Angeles. While searching for a job, Wells landed an internship in OSU’s career services department, which helped her build a specialty in the niche field of counseling job seekers.

“What we are seeing from these younger generations is that they are working harder than ever but have nothing to show for it because no one will give them a job,”  Wells said.

What Wells experienced personally and now sees professionally – grads confounded and mentally exhausted by the unforgiving job market — is confirmed by labor analysts and academics.

A new bifurcation in strong labor market

“What we are experiencing now is a bit of a bifurcation of the labor market. The roles that need filling are often very heavily skewed towards those with less than a bachelor’s degree,” said Rachel Sederberg, senior economist and research manager at labor analytics firm Lightcast.  

“We are hearing this from students, but also seeing labor market data backing it up,” said Sederberg, who is also an adjunct economics professor at Stonehill College, and added that she sees student frustration first-hand.

For instance, Lightcast’s data shows that job postings for bachelor’s degree holders with two years or less of experience from Jan-May ’23 to Jan-May ’24 saw little difference in top occupations, industries, and skills demanded. However, there were 148,500 fewer job postings in that period for ’24 than in ’23.

For jobs that don’t require a degree, openings are up slightly from last year, from 65.75% of postings in 2023 to 65.98% so far in 2024.  However, according to Lightcast’s data, 8 of the top 10 job postings in March were ones that did not require a college degree.

“For jobs that don’t require a degree, we don’t have enough workers by any stretch, and they are having a great experience trying to find jobs,”  Sederberg says, adding that there is strong demand in the trades, retail, hospitality, and leisure.

“That is partly…