Something that Ben Bernanke said in the 60 minutes interview has been sticking in my brain. When asked about income disparity, Bernanke commented on the current situation with the unemployment rate and educational achievement. To that end, consider this chart from Calculated Risk that shows the unemployment rate by educational achievement. Notice that the lower one's educational achievement, the higher the unemployment rate. Also notice the wide margin -- less education means a remarkably higher rate of unemployment. I realize that education is not the be all and the end all but it is obviously a very important factor in this equation.
3 comments:
Education may not be as simple as job security in high-demand skills or lack of competition. Education means the flexibility to more easily move from low-demand to high-demand sectors. If you're in construction and construction is all you can do, you're in a very tight spot right now. A database architect probably had a hard time during the '90s bust, but they could at least use a spreadsheet -- a skill used in thousands of jobs.
Low-education-requirement jobs were the easiest -- and hence the first -- jobs to be sent overseas. Don't worry, the high-education-requirement jobs will follow soon.
Study something that simply can't be offshored -- plumbing, for instance -- and join a union.
Most protected group of people in last two years were government workers like teachers or government contract beneficiaries like health because of stimulus aid. These workers are more highly educated than others. When they pull the plug on federal help for education and health care, these charts will change dramatically.
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