Rosy Scenario 101

Academics love to forecast. For the sake of college graduates, let’s hope their latest one proves to be more warranted than now seems possible.

“Students seeking full-time jobs after graduation will face a more optimistic job market this year, as the National Association of Colleges and Employers predicts a nearly 20 percent rise in hiring of graduates,” Katherine Rodriguez wrote in The GW Hatchet Online. “The association’s spring job outlook survey anticipates employers will hire 19.3 percent more graduates this year than in 2010, the first time employers have reported a double-digit increase in spring hiring projections since 2007.”

“An increase in hiring is also expected to bring an increase in starting salary offers. The average salary offer to all Class of 2011 graduates now stands at $50,462, according to results of a recent National Association of Colleges and Employers survey, 5.9 percent more than the average for 2010 graduates.”

The GW Hatchet is the daily student newspaper, with an online edition, at George Washington University. Students at GW were more pessimistic than the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

“While many students are still searching for work, senior Travis Holler has already secured a job for this summer as a field representative for Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign in Iowa,” Rodriguez reported. “Holler said the report’s hiring predictions seem ‘very unrealistic.’”

“I feel like the vast majority of people graduating are unemployed or going on to graduate programs,” he told Rodriguez.

Meanwhile, “Senior Hannah Orenstein, who has not yet lined up a job for post-graduation, said she and her friends expected their previous internships to carry more weight as they searched for full-time work,” Rodriguez related.

“They say internships get your feet in the door,” Orenstein said to Rodriguez. “We have our feet in so many doors and it seems like internships don’t matter anymore.”

“There may be some degrees which have a general set of skills which are getting passed over by employers,” Eric Lane, who found a job with JetBlue Airways in New York, told Rodriguez. Women’s Studies and Conflict Resolution Management might be two of these.

In the end, the observations of these students may prove to be more accurate than those of the NACE, government forecasters and the press corps combined.

“Employers ramped up their hiring in April, the Labor Department said Friday, giving hope that recent signs of weakening growth have not undermined job creation,” Neal Irwin reported in The Washington Post on May 6, 2011. “But the unemployment rate also rose, showing that American workers are still having a rough time finding jobs.”

“Employers added 244,000 jobs in April, the agency said, with the gain in private-sector jobs — 268,000 — the strongest in five years. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, moved up to 9 percent from 8.8 percent, rising for the first time since November.”

That the unemployment rate went up despite the job gains indicates that the latter is not a net figure. Moreover, a look at the quarter of a million job windfall shows that this economic indicator is even less impressive.

“McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), the world’s biggest restaurant chain, said it hired 24 percent more people than planned during an employment event this month,” Leslie Patton reported in the Bloomberg News on April 28, 2011. “McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement.”

“Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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