This new data helps shed light on the dramatic changes in employment opportunities for recent college graduates, and underscores the glaring disparities between different majors. As of March, the unemployment rate for recent college grads rose to 5.8%, up from 4.6% a year ago. Other fields, such as nursing and nutritional sciences, do find themselves booming and flexing incredible resiliency.
Unemployment among nursing majors is only 1.4%, which makes sense given the perpetual demand for healthcare workers. With the U.S. economy adding 902,000 healthcare and social assistance jobs last year, the healthcare sector is projected to grow much faster than average for all U.S. jobs through 2033. The current healthcare boom. The monumental nursing shortage – expected to worsen through 2030 – is fueling the professions’ growth. This is a great time to be entering the profession.
Travis Moore, a workforce development expert, commented on the situation, stating, “There’s a significant nursing shortage going on right now.” He further emphasized that this shortage “creates a really strong opportunity to get into a career with really low layoffs.”
By comparison, the arts and humanities are doing terribly. Today, computer science majors face an unemployment rate of 6.1%. Graduates who came out with a degree in computer engineering have an even shorter rate at 7.5%. Even with these hurdles, median wages for CS and CE grads are still very compelling, with both medians about $80k.
Surprisingly, the randomness continues, as other arts graduates have equally unpredictable employment results. The art history major, for instance, boasts a 3% unemployment rate. Nutritional sciences graduates have a remarkable 0.4% unemployment rate. This gap highlights the need for students to select a field of study that matches where the money and opportunity are flowing.
The spike in unemployment rates for recent graduates has hit younger generations the hardest. In February, the total of Gen Z households that are collecting unemployment benefits jumped 31.9% from a year earlier. This dramatic jump highlights the persistent economic crisis that this group continues to experience.
Businesses are reacting to these labor market trends by changing their hiring practices. BlackRock, for example, is shifting its focus towards candidates who majored in history, English, and other non-finance or non-technology disciplines. Robert Goldstein, a senior executive at BlackRock, remarked, “We have more and more conviction that we need people who majored in history, in English, and things that have nothing to do with finance or technology.” This remark reflects an increasing awareness—on campus and off—of the importance of nontraditional educational paths in a 21st century economy.
The employment landscape is shifting beneath our feet. Areas such as nursing and nutritional sciences have highly rewarding career paths awaiting recent graduates. The attractiveness of these sectors is further amplified by their resilience during economic uncertainty.