There are 75 million workers without a college degree, but only 30 million of them have 'good jobs'
Last edited Wed Jul 26, 2017, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)
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There are 75 million workers without a college degree, but only 30 million of them have 'good jobs'
ETA, 12:15 p.m.: here's the article, or what I am allowed to excerpt from it.
Full disclosure: I was hired for the job I have now as I was completing a course at Northern Virginia Community College. Because of them, I am employed.
The State of Good Jobs in America
More than 30 million jobs that pay $35,000-plus are open to noncollege graduates
By Lauren Weber
https://twitter.com/laurenweberwsj
lauren.weber@wsj.com
Updated July 26, 2017 12:20 a.m. ET
At a time when politicians and pundits decry the end of middle-class jobs, it may come as a surprise that there are 30 million jobs paying more than $35,000 a year for U.S. workers without four-year college degrees. ... Now for the bad news: there are 75 million U.S. workers without college diplomas, or 2.5 workers for every one of those good jobs, meaning that high-school grads have far lower odds of winning the career lottery than they did 25 years ago, according to a new report from Georgetown Universitys Center on Education and the Workforce. Good jobs, as defined by the reports authors, pay more than $35,000 a year, or more than $45,000 for workers over the age of 45.
The number of good jobs for noncollege graduates rose to 30 million in 2015 from 27 million in 1991, but the labor market grew, too. By 2015, the share of all good jobs that went to noncollege graduates fell to 45% from 60% in 1991leaving 45 million workers in low-paying, sometimes part-time roles that dont offer a path to the middle class.
In the post-World War II era, jobs in manufacturing and production propelled millions of American workers into the middle class. Today, more middle-class jobs for nongraduates are in financial services and health care. A high-school diploma alone wont cut it for a lot of those jobs, however.
Among noncollege degree holders, only workers with an associate degree had better odds of finding a good job in 2015 than they did 1991, Georgetown found. High-school graduates and dropouts, and people with some college,
are all faring worse now than before, the report says.
....
Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com
Appeared in the July 26, 2017, print edition as 'The State of Good Jobs in America.'