Education and Unemployment

Education matters

The Bureau of Labor Statistics breaks out employment levels by four levels of education for those over twenty-five years old. Since the beginning of the recession, we have seen a big difference in job losses between those with higher education and those with lower education:

For those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, the recession has had a relatively minor impact compared to those less educated. In fact, that cohort had only seen two months of job losses until September.

The change in employment between those with more education provides further support for the now popular “K-shaped” recovery narrative. While you would never expect completely even losses amongst different employment groups (by educations or otherwise), you’d at least expect some degree of correlation. The vast difference in employment as a result of the coronavirus is just another way this recession has had a very uneven impact.

Going forward, we do see two months of losses for the bachelor’s cohort, which may or may not be the start of a trend. We will have to wait another month for more data on this but expect concern from economists if it continues.

More Metrics

The US workforce has become more educated over the last thirty years

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