Unemployment by Education

The multi-speed nature of the economic recovery has perhaps been the single greatest source of confusion for market-watchers, journalists, investors and business owners over the last few years. When most people talk in terms of “the economy” being good or bad, they mean it as a whole. Much harder to have that discussion without all of the caveats these days.

For example, the unemployment rate for the college-educated is under five percent and is now attaining the levels of the Bush or Clinton administration. The recovery for this demo looks and feels significantly different than it does for groups with lesser educational backgrounds – although unemployment is slowly falling for all.

From Bill McBride:

Clearly education matters with regards to the unemployment rate – and it appears all four groups are generally trending down. Although education matters for the unemployment rate, it doesn’t appear to matter as far as finding new employment (all four categories are only gradually declining).Note: This says nothing about the quality of jobs – as an example, a college graduate working at minimum wage would be considered “employed”.

Source:

Calculated Risk