Orlando, FL – According to a new report by the Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce the vast majority of workers who have benefited from the recovery of the recession were workers who have at least a bachelors degree. Of the 11.6 million jobs created since the recession ended in late 2009, 8.4 million of those jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree. These numbers show that America is becoming more of an education economy and post-recession a college degree is more valuable than ever. Even today a person with a 4 year degree is twice as likely to be employed than someone with a high school diploma. The unemployment rate for those holding a bachelors degree is 2.5% while high school graduates have a 5.6% unemployment rate. When it comes to salary that is nearly double too with college grads making $1,227 a week on average and high school graduates making $678 a week. Bottom line college works!
The news in Florida for high school grads is slightly more rosy in terms of opportunities. Our strong service and tourism industries provides openings for a number of fields such as retail, maintenance, hospitality, and restaurant service workers. If you were a new grad in the past 12 months and had less than 5 years experience there were 163,273 job listings according to the labor analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies. This is good news if you are fresh out of high school and looking for work. However, these jobs still lag behind in terms of wages. For all workers with a high school diploma 56% of those jobs made less than $35,000 a year or $16.82 an hour.
Contrast that with young people who have received their bachelors degree and have less than five years experience. In the past 12 months in Florida there were 217,435 jobs requiring a bachelors degree and less than 5 years experience in areas such as nursing, sales, software development, management, and accounting. In addition to having more openings and options these jobs pay nearly twice as much. For all workers the median salary was $66,402, or nearly $32 an hour, with 62% of those paid over $50,000, the salary the Center for Education and Workforce classifies as “good paying”.
The Florida Consortium is uniquely situated to help students make the connection and get to work! The metro areas of Miami, Tampa, and Orlando contain over 75% of where those jobs requiring a bachelors degree reside. Partnered with a growing economy, a great quality of life, and world class research universities the three Florida Consortium metro locales are perfect for students looking to launch their careers.
In addition to the value of a bachelors degree there are a number of advantages all three universities provide for their students. Each university has a career services department aimed at helping students find the perfect job. Through assistance with career counselors and job postings students can connect with hundreds of employers. These students can also benefit from programs aimed at assisting students in areas such as resume development, interview skills, and job search techniques. Each department offers mock interviewing, host job fairs, and have online resources aimed at career development. In the spirit of our collaboration the career services departments has joined forces to offer a number of online job fairs where employers can interact with students in chat room formats. This service allows students to explore opportunities in all three metro areas thus expanding the student’s network and opportunities. To date nearly 50 employers and over 1,600 students have interacted in this platform. In the coming weeks we will be producing a number of labor insight reports that highlight the strength of our impact on the Florida economy through our high quality education programs.