One More Reason to Stay in School

Every day that you open the newspaper there is more bad news about unemployment. Even though the stock market is rebounding (at least at the moment), unemployment is a lagging economic indicator. That means that employment might not turn up until we are fairly deep into an economic turnaround. (When the last recession ended in November 2001, employment didn't improve significantly until almost two years later.)

Most recently the overall unemployment rate has hovered around 9 percent and many people are predicting that it could top 10 percent at some point this year or in early 2010. That number is definitely scary, but if you dig into the numbers a little, you will find that certain groups of people are being hit harder than others.

Recently, the unemployment rate was about 8.9 percent overall, but if you are a college graduate, the rate is less than half that amount -- just 4.4 percent. That is still a big jump from the beginning of 2008 when the unemployment rate for college grads was just a little over 2 percent but in the scheme of things, college graduates seem to be able to find jobs.

In comparision, the unemployment rate in May was 10 percent for high school graduates. For those who failed to graduate from high school, the unemployment rate was a much higher 15.5 percent.

Interestingly, unemployment among men is significantly higher than unemployment among women. Many people speculate that this is due to the fact that more women work in fields like healthcare and education, which have not been hit as hard in this recession.

So, the takeaway here is that people with college educations are faring much better in this job market (and probably every job market). If you didn't attend or graduate from college, consider enrolling (or re-enrolling). Many state and community colleges offer reasonable tuition and flexible class schedules and these schools are reporting noticeable jumps in enrollment.