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English majors might traditionally get a bad rap for job prospects, but it's the business majors who are having a hard time finding work in their field of choice.

According to PayScale's "Underemployment In America" report released on Tuesday , graduates who studied business management and administration were 8.2 times more likely to be underemployed compared to their classmates.

This ratio of underemployment is almost twice as high as for English majors, who were 4.6 times more likely to be underemployed than their peers.

"Underemployment" rates measure the number of workers who are highly skilled, but in low-paying jobs and not utilizing their expertise and experience, or who are working part-time jobs but would prefer to be in a full-time position.

"The problem with business majors is that it's so common," Katie Bardaro, lead economist at PayScale, tells us. "There's so many of them and not enough jobs to go around."

Without an MBA, undergraduate business majors have it pretty tough, says PayScale's report, which identified the 10 most underemployed undergraduate majors based on an analysis of 40 million career profiles on its site.

Other majors with high levels of underemployment were criminal justice (6.9 times more likely to be underemployed), drama and theater arts majors (6.9 times), anthropology (5.8 times), l iberal arts (5.6 times), history (5.5 times), and psychology (5 times), according to PayScale.

Of the different types of schools PayScale looked at, business schools also had the highest relative ratio of underemployment (1.17 times the national average), whereas engineering schools had the lowest (0.36 times the national average).

What does this mean for the bigger economy?

"Underemployment can have lasting effects on local economies," PayScale's report said. "As fewer people are able to find the jobs that match their qualifications or desired hours, less money cycles through the economy, and businesses continue to hold back on hiring. It is a compounding cycle that can mean real trouble for the metros on our list."

In short, education can help you better your skills and develop valuable relationships with others, but it's up to individuals to think like innovators and disruptors and identify trends that will set them apart in our rapidly evolving global workforce.





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