Under-Employment Among College Grads:

Nothing Too Unusual

And as we've explained before, the recent growth of part-time work is mostly about the legacy of the recession.

Part-Time Work Among College Grads:

Up, Then Down

Credit

This week, the Obvious Story received another data blow when the San Francisco Fed found that wages in typical college-grad jobs—young white-collar professions like paralegal work, advertising, and accounting, or higher-paying fields like management, business, and finance—are actually growing even slower than wages for all college grads, combined. Since 2007, overall wages are up 15 percent (not adjusted for inflation), young grads' wages are up 6 percent, and young-grads-in-business-and-finance are up 2.6 percent.

What this doesn't mean? It means that, although there are slightly more NYU-educated baristas and part-timers than usual, the reason young people aren't making as much money as they expected coming out of school is mostly the result of professional industries freezing entry-level salaries for college grads. It's the overall weakness in the labor market, possibly exacerbated by the glut of college graduates looking for work, that's pushing down the average wage of bachelor's-degree holders.*

Frozen Wages for the Smartest College Grads

*Update: It didn't immediately occur to me that many high-skill jobs might be at large corporations with (a) access to software that mimics simple entry-level work and (b) an international footprint. U.S. entry-level workers at big corps might be more likely to compete with cheaper international entry-level workers, which would also explain a restraint in pay growth. These are informed guesses.