Left to right: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images, Seth Wenig/Associated Press The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report released Friday was not good news. Though 431,000 jobs were created in May nationwide, the bulk of them were workers hired by the federal government to help with the Census — jobs that will disappear in a few months. Only 41,000 private jobs were created, far short of expectations of 150,000 to 180,000 jobs, and unemployment rates remained steady. Economists estimate that the U.S. needs to add more than 100,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with new workers — high school and college graduates — entering the market.
In such a climate, should the new college graduates consider jobs they might have rejected a few years ago? A recent Times Magazine article by Judith Warner pointed out that some studies show young people just out of college are turning down jobs that they don’t like. (Ms. Warner has some follow-up comments, below.) In this economy, is any job better than no job?
- Hara Estroff Marano, author, “A Nation of Wimps”
- Ken Goldstein, economist
- Edwin W. Koc, National Association of Colleges and Employers
- Katherine S. Newman, sociologist, Princeton University
- Roger Simmermaker, local union official
- Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, author, “Emerging Adulthood”
- Jean Twenge, psychology professor
- Judith Warner, journalist
Take the Job
Hara Estroff Marano is the editor-at-large of Psychology Today and the author, most recently, of “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting.” She also writes the magazine’s advice column, Unconventional Wisdom.
In this economy, and specifically for those young people starting out in the job market, any job is better than no job.
Taking a humble job and giving it one’s all is definitely a promising strategy in any job climate.
First of all, many of the young people entering the job market have a great many workplace-related skills to learn — from when to show up and when to leave, to how to dress and present themselves, to how to approach a job, to knowing how to work with others, to setting and working toward goals incrementally. These involve deeper values that cannot be taught theoretically. And although there may be some rude awakenings in the workplace, on-the-job learning is likely the fastest and most indelible way to acquire the values and skills and work ethic that will carry them to their ultimate goals.
Second, landing a job in what is now a very competitive marketplace at almost all levels is also confidence-building. It breeds the belief that one can indeed find a job, so it automatically thwarts the development of fear, cynicism and other attitudes that can take ugly root in this job climate and inhibit a job search — and breed depression a well.
Think Before You Jump
Ken Goldstein is an economist at The Conference Board.
It is never true that any job is better than no job. That might sound strange when the unemployment rate is hovering close to 10 percent and not expected to fall below 9 percent until perhaps the start of 2012. Of course, keep in mind, no job generally means no paycheck even as the bank wants the mortgage and car note paid. But even if a “good” job opportunity opened up somewhere, that family owing a lot more on the home than they recover by selling, might actually be better off financially, saying no thanks.
There are plenty of reasons to turn down a job offer.
That’s only one of the conditions that might lead someone to turn down a job offer. A second obvious condition is someone who believes waiting will bring a much better opportunity than that being presented at the moment. A third would be that young person fresh out of college with a bachelor’s degree, staring at a poor job market, and deciding to go back to school for a master’s degree, even if it means more student loans.
Or this young person might decide that while waiting for someone else to offer a job, he or she might as well start a business. With an economy on the upswing, however slowly, what better time to try and watch both the business and the economy grow over time.
It All Depends on Financial Needs
Edwin Koc is the director of strategic and foundation research at the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
Whether any job is better than no job depends upon the circumstances confronting an individual. For someone without alternative prospects and facing immediate financial needs that include paying for food and shelter, any job that provides some level of financial support is better than no job at all.
Going to graduate school or volunteering are good alternatives to low-paying, dead-end jobs.
However, if the individual, as is the case with many new college graduates, has the wherewithal to “survive” financially for a period of time without being employed there may be better alternatives to some of the jobs that are being offered.
Many of this year’s bachelor’s degree graduates (about 27 percent based on a student survey by my organization) will delay their entry into the job market by going to graduate or professional school. This will allow them to bypass today’s weak labor market in favor of what they hope to be a much stronger market in a couple of years. In addition, the added education will provide them with additional credentials that should make them more attractive to employers when they do enter the market.
A Bad Situation
Katherine S. Newman, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, is author of “The Missing Class.”
Sociologists have been studying how the prestige or complexity of one’s first job has an impact on the rest of a career trajectory for some time now. Their findings provide some support for the job seeker who pulls back from a position that falls well below the expectations of those with a high school diploma or a college degree. Where you start has serious consequences for where you end up, which is one reason — besides blind optimism — why some young (and not so young) people might not jump at the first thing offered.
Those at the bottom of the skill pyramid don’t have the luxury of saying “no” to a job, but few employers are saying “yes” to them.
Just as the long-term unemployed will find it difficult to compete against the freshly minted jobseeker, so too will the sales clerk who hopes to be a Wall Street maven face an uphill climb to persuade Morgan Stanley that she has the “right stuff.” If her biography doesn’t match her aspirations, it can be a tough sell when newer, less “scarred” job seekers flood the pool from which the boss is choosing.
But the real crisis in the labor force is not to be found among the college educated. Low skilled, poorly educated workers are the people for whom this recession has been catastrophic. Unemployment is running nearly 50 percent among young black men in New York City. To let their human capital rot on the sidelines is a recipe for a lifetime of economic marginality.
A Mandate While Looking for the Ideal Job
Roger Simmermaker, an electronics technician for a large defense contractor and the vice president of his local machinists union, is the author of “How Americans Can Buy American.”
In this economy, almost any job is better than no job, and the instances in which today’s employment seekers turn down job offers should be rare.
Work to provide consumer demand that will lead to more U.S. jobs.
It is understandable that not every American is suited for every job category that exists. But there are opportunities in accepting employment in an industry that is not completely “ideal” while we are still seeking the perfect job: 1.) The ability to see the value in other types of work, 2.) the opening for appreciation of our diverse economy and 3.) paid on-the-job training that would look nice on a resume during a future downturn.
An American worker that is employed in his ideal position is likely to be happier and more productive, and society as a whole benefits from this. In today’s super-competitive economy, peak productivity is an essential component for out-competing other productive nations with which we trade.
Why Shouldn’t They Take Their Time?
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a research professor of psychology at Clark University and the author of “Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties.”
Amid the recent economic gloom, to some it is jarring to hear that more than 40 percent of recent college graduates have turned down at least one job offer, as reported in the annual survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. At first glance, this seems to provide grist for the mill of the cottage industry that has developed in recent years devoted to denigrating the young: “See what selfish slackers they are, the youth of this generation! What’s the matter with those lazy brats? Why, in my day ….”
Michael Stravato for The New York Times It’s never easy for young people entering the job market. However, a closer consideration of the job circumstances of the young yields a picture that is more complex and sympathetic, if less viscerally satisfying. Graduating from college still places a person among the economic elite. Only 29 percent of 25- to 30-year-olds have a four-year college degree, and their economic prospects are much brighter than their peers who never attained this feat. Not only is their unemployment rate relatively low for their age group, once they get on a stable career path it is likely to provide them with a much higher income for the remainder of their working lives.
So, even in tough economic times like these, they are confident enough in the power of their diploma to hold out for a job they really want rather than taking the first opportunity that comes along. This seems not spoiled but wise.
Say Yes
Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, is the author of “Generation Me: Why today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before.”
It’s college graduation season, that happy time when proud graduates and their parents look toward the future with optimism. With unemployment still sky-high, though, the graduations of 2010 are tempered by a dose of anxiety.
Everyone has to start somewhere in the working world.
Well, at least on the part of the parents. Many young people remain extremely confident, even overconfident, that the sky is the limit for them. Raised in an era when everyone got a trophy just for showing up, they are sure that their smarts and hard-won college degree will land them the perfect job. Until it appears, some members of Generation Me have opted out of paid employment, turning down job offers that they saw as beneath them.
In a study just published in the Journal of Management, my colleagues and I found that GenMe, compared to earlier generations at the same age, sees work as less central to their lives and wants jobs with lots of time off. They’ve got a point — Americans do work too many hours. But voluntary unemployment for more than a few months takes things to the other extreme.
Marissa’s Story
Judith Warner, a former columnist for nytimes.com, is the author of “Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety” and “We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.”
A number of readers of my Times Magazine piece felt that its depiction of entitled, unrealistically optimistic students holding out for ideal jobs indicated that I had only interviewed children of privilege. In truth, I had interviewed a good cross-section of students, racially, economically and geographically diverse, and had been surprised to find strikingly similar attitudes among them, regardless of background. There was, however, one young woman I encountered whose voice stayed with me long after our interview, because it was so very different from all the rest and because I found her story so haunting.
Forty job applications later, she has nothing more than a summer internship.
Marissa Calhoun was originally from Queens, raised by a single mother who works as a nurse. Her maternal great-grandparents were sharecroppers. Her grandmother left the South for New York City when she was young and put herself through college, nursing school and a Master’s program. “She is really my inspiration,” Marissa said. “Now I’m just hoping to carry the torch and carry us forward as a family.”
Marissa attended Bucknell on a full scholarship, with a double-major in English and women’s studies, and was the founder and president of Bucknell’s Black Student Union. She also interned for the Department of Homeland Security while on campus, worked for the school’s communications department videotaping special events, and on vacations held internships with MTV, PBS and Voice of America — which leads us to the haunting part of her story.