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Good Jobs Are Back

College Graduates Are First in Line

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The growth of U.S. jobs and wages during the recovery is analyzed in Good Jobs Are Back: College Graduates Are First in Line. The findings show that since 2010, the economy has produced 6.6 million employment opportunities. Out of these career opportunities, 2.9 million are considered good jobs. The key finding revealed that 2.8 million good jobs went to college graduates. Some of the largest growing professions seek high-skilled workers and offer large benefits packages. Most good jobs are full time and twice as likely to provide health insurance and retirement plans. The competitive wages and good benefits of these good jobs offer created a healthy job market during the recovery.

key Findings

1

Benefits

Eighty-six percent of workers in good jobs are full-time; 68 percent of good jobs provide health insurance; and 61 percent of good jobs include an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
2

Occupations

Managers, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and healthcare professionals account for the majority of growth in the good jobs tier.
3

Middle-wage Jobs

Middle-wage jobs have not fully recovered, remaining 900,000 jobs below their pre-recession employment levels.
4

Low-wage Jobs

Low-wage jobs pay $32,000 or less but comprise only 27 percent (1.8 million) of the jobs added after the recession.

Listen To The Podcast

Join us for a discussion on Good Jobs Are Back: College Graduates Are First in Line featuring Dr. Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce, and Martin Van Der Werf, associate director of editorial and postsecondary policy. In the Q&A session, Dr. Carnevale provides two key takeaways for job seekers. Since 2010, the economy has produced 6.6 million employment opportunities proving there is hope for the future workforce. The report shows that 2.9 million of these opportunities are good jobs (a term we use for jobs that are in the upper-third by median wages of occupations in which they are classified) and 2.8 million of these good jobs went to college graduates. Dr. Carnevale provides background on how jobs are classified and what it takes to obtain one.

Resources

Prior conversations in the media discussed research that suggested that college graduates were stuck filling low-wage jobs. Our latest report, Good Jobs Are Back: College Graduates Are First in Line, analyzes the growth of the U.S. jobs and wages during the recession and recovery, and shows this earlier research to be misleading. We find that since 2010, the economy has produced 6.6 million employment opportunities, 2.9 million of which are considered good jobs (a term we use for jobs in the upper-third by median wages of occupations in which they are classified). The key findings revealed that 2.8 million of these good jobs went to college graduates. Some of the largest growing professions seek high-skilled workers and offer large benefit packages. Most good jobs are full time and twice as likely to provide health insurance and retirement plans. Read the full report to learn more about the growth of good jobs during the recovery.

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