April 04, 2011
USA Today told readers that employers are disproportionately hiring college-educated workers. The data presented in the article actually do not make much of a case. While it is true that the employment to population ratio (EPOP) for college grads has risen, the increase has been very modest. The EPOP for college grads averaged 73.4 percent in the first three months of this year compared to 73.3 percent in the first three months of 2010.
As evidence that demand for college-educated workers is rising, the article reported that the professional and business services sector added 78,000 jobs in March. The article implies that these are jobs that require college degrees. In fact, more than a third of these jobs (28,800) were in the temporary help sector. Most of these jobs almost certainly did not require college degrees. Other sectors reporting good growth in March, such as restaurants and manufacturing, don’t typically require that workers have college degrees. On the other hand, the government sector, which disproportionately employs workers with college degrees, shed jobs in March and the four prior months.
In short, it is not at all clear that the jobs being created by the economy at this point disproportionately require college degrees.
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