US / Theater and Arts College Grads land jobs ahead of tech grads

Recent graduates with tech degrees face higher unemployment rates after the Great Recession.

Here’s a surprise for college students: Recent graduates with technology degrees are having a tougher time finding a job than their peers in the arts.

The unemployment rate for recent grads with a degree in information systems is more than double that of drama and theater majors, at 14.7% vs. 6.4%, according to a recent Georgetown University study. Even for computer science majors, the jobless rate for recent grads nears 9%.

Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, said the statistics reflect the recession that officially ended in 2009. Certain job markets, like IT, are inherently cyclical, and are more affected by dips in the economy, Carnevale explained.

“During the recessions, those people lose their jobs,” he said. “They’re not computer scientists or programmers or people who understand the innards of computers; they’re people who use computer information at their job,” such as workers at a bank’s customer service desk.

Drama and theater jobs, on the other hand, are not heavily affected by the recession, and tend to have lower unemployment rates because there are fewer graduates in these fields, Carnevale added.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via College grads in theater and arts landing jobs ahead of tech grads.