2007-08 Bachelor’s Degree Recipients In US – 7 percent were unemployed and 8 percent were out of the labor force

The report Baccalaureate and Beyond:A First Look at the Employment Experiences and Lives of College Graduates, 4 Years On published by the National Center for Education Statistics,  the Institute of Education Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education presents initial findings about the employment outcomes of bachelor’s degree recipients approximately 4 years after they completed their 2007 -08 degrees. These findings are based on data from the second follow-up of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:08/12), a nationally representative longitudinal sample survey of students who completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree during the 2007 -08 academic year. The study addresses questions related to bachelor’s degree recipients’ education and employment experiences and includes two follow-ups. The first follow-up, which was conducted 1 year after graduation, explored both undergraduate education experiences and early postbaccalaureate employment and enrollment. This second follow-up, conducted in 2012, examines bachelor’s degree recipients’ labor market experiences and enrollment in additional postsecondary degree programs through the 4th year after graduation

Selected Findings

Demographic and enrollment characteristics

• Four years after graduating in 2007-08, some 54 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients were unmarried with no dependent children, and 21 percent were married with no dependent children (table 1). Five percent were unmarried with dependent children, and another 20 percent were married with dependent children.

Employment and enrollment status

• Eleven percent of 2007-08 bachelor’s degree recipients were combining employment and additional postsecondary enrollment in 2012, some 6 percent were exclusively enrolled, 69 percent were exclusively employed, 7 percent were unemployed (looking for work), and 8 percent were out of the labor force (not looking for work) (table 2).
• Four years after graduation, 83 percent of graduates who were not enrolled we’re employed (table 3). Of those, about 85 percent worked in one full-time job, 8 percent worked in one part-time job, and 8 percent had multiple jobs.3
• Among graduates who were not enrolled in 2012, some 87 percent of those who majored in health care fields as undergraduates were employed, and of those 76 percent worked in one full-time job, 14 percent in one part-time job, and 10 percent in multiple jobs (table 3).
• Among graduates who were not enrolled in 2012, some 78 percent of those who majored in social science fields as undergraduates were employed, and of those 84 percent worked in one full-time job, 8 percent in one part-time job, and 8 percent in multiple jobs (table 3).Number of jobs held after the bachelor’s degree

• On average, 2007–08 graduates who had never enrolled in additional postsecondary degree programs after earning their bachelor’s degree had held two jobs in the 4 years since graduation (table 4). Thirty-nine and 34 percent had held one or two jobs, respectively. Sixteen percent had held three jobs, and the remaining 11 percent had held four or more jobs.

Time spent employed, unemployed, and out of the labor force

• On average, graduates who had not enrolled after earning their bachelor’s degreewere employed for about 84 percent of the months that elapsed between their graduation in 2007–08 and the second follow-up study in 2012 (table 5). Some 6 percent of the time between graduation and the second follow-up study, on average, was spent unemployed, and the remaining 10 percent was spent out of the labor force.

Hours per week and salary in current primary job

• Bachelor’s degree recipients who had been employed in their current job for more than 3 months at the time of the second follow-up and were not enrolled, worked an average of 41 hours per week in that job (table 6). Among the 85 percent who worked full time,4 the average annualized salary from that primary job was $52,200.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Baccalaureate and Beyond:A First Look at the Employment Experiences and Lives of College Graduates, 4 Years On