Where the Jobs Are, and Who’s Getting Them

Mike Mandel posts a useful chart showing where college-educated young folks are getting jobs:

The big picture is that government and professional services (think white-collar jobs like accounting, law, consulting) are absorbing as many workers as the manufacturing and financial industries are shedding. (This is not to say that a worker who would have become a die caster is becoming a tax attorney — just that we know where the jobs are shifting.) Mandel adds, “We hear anecdotes about young college grads being forced to work as waitstaff in restaurants, and here’s one indication that might be more common than we would like — the number of young college grads working in hotels and restaurants is up 33K over the past year.”

But overall, employment among college graduates has grown by about 130,000 positions — not bad, given the economic straits. Things look much bleaker for low-income workers, to look at a different demographic breakdown. Today, Menzie Chinn posted this terrifying graphic:

As one might expect, the less a worker was making before she lost her job, the higher the chance she is unemployed or underemployed today.