Only Half Of 2020 College Graduates Had Jobs Within Six Months Of Entering Job Market

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown-induced recession, roughly 50% of college students who earned their degrees in 2020 failed to find a job within six months of graduation.

An analysis from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 2020 graduates had significantly lower job market success than their peers who matriculated in 2019.

CNBC summarized:

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) recently analyzed the outcomes for 563,000 bachelor’s graduates across 337 colleges and universities and found that only 50.2% of the class of 2020 had full-time jobs with a traditional employer (meaning they are not working as a freelancer or entrepreneur) within six months of graduation. In comparison, 55.3% of the class of 2019 graduates were employed within the same time frame.

Students who attended colleges with fewer than 2,000 students tended to do better after graduation. Closer to 62% of these students had full-time positions after six months. 

As CNBC also noted, Bureau of Labor Statistics data from January 2020 to October 2020 reveal that graduates entering the job market during last year’s recession saw a bigger decline in labor force participation than those who graduated during the financial crisis. – READ MORE