Class of 2006 enjoys the strongest job market in 5 years

[xiggi]

<p>NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – </p>

<p>The Class of 2006 continues to enjoy the strongest job market in five years. And in many disciplines, the starting salaries are proof that entry-level grads are in greater demand.</p>

<p>According to a survey, majors that have seen some of the biggest increases in average starting salaries are:</p>

<li><p>Hospitality services management: Up 9.7 percent to $36,480</p></li>
<li><p>Business administration/management: Up 6.3 percent to $42,048, thanks to investment banks that were paying an average of $53,277</p></li>
<li><p>Accounting: Up 5.5 percent to $45,656</p></li>
<li><p>Economics/finance: Up 5.1 percent to $45,112, again thanks to a high number of offers from investment banks and also financial services companies.</p></li>
<li><p>Information sciences and systems: Up 8.5 percent to $48,593</p></li>
<li><p>Civil engineering: Up 5.4 percent to $46,023</p></li>
<li><p>Chemical engineering: Up 4.7 percent to $56,335, thanks to a large number of starting offers averaging $58,456 from petroleum and coal products manufacturers. Those manufacturers may also be responsible for the 12.3 percent jump in the starting salaries of those who majored in geology and related sciences. They are earning an average of $44,191.</p></li>
<li><p>Computer engineering: Up 2.3 percent to $53,651</p></li>
<li><p>Electrical engineering: Up 3.2 percent to $53,552</p></li>
<li><p>Mechanical engineering: Up 3 percent to $51,732</p></li>
<li><p>History: Up 3.1 percent to $32,697</p></li>
<li><p>Psychology: Up 1.2 percent to $30,218</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Other majors where starting offers actually declined.</p>

<li><p>Communications: Down 0.4 percent to $31,876</p></li>
<li><p>Political science and government: Down 2.6 percent to $32,665</p></li>
<li><p>Sociology: Down 2.7 percent to $30,944</p></li>
<li><p>English: Down 4.1 percent to $30,906</p></li>
</ol>

[barrons]

<p>Cannot be. Everything is horrible. The US economy is in the tank.</p>

[momoftwins]

<p>I remember longing for the day that I would make five figures. So, so long ago…</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003149781_gradpay25.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003149781_gradpay25.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Get used to the real world kids, where inflation goes up, but your paycheck doesnt</p>

<p>

Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor’s degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2 percent between 2000 and 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.</p>

<p>It is a setback for workers, and it may explain why surveys show that many Americans think President Bush has not managed the economy well.</p>

<p>Not since the 1970s have workers with bachelor’s degrees seen a prolonged slump. These workers did well during the last period of growth, with average wages rising 12 percent from 1995 to 2000, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.</p>

<p>For Lewis, the decline in buying power prompted a radical decision: Last year, he moved his family from San Jose to Gardnerville, Nev., where the cost of living is lower.</p>

<p>“Nothing else was going down except wages,” said Lewis, who graduated from California State University, Long Beach, in 1994 with a degree in fine arts. Now, he is starting his own Web design business while his wife, Kimberly, works for the county.</p>

<p>Still, a college education can be a ticket to higher-paying jobs. College graduates earned an average of $51,206 last year, while high-school graduates earned $27,915, according to Census Bureau figures. Those with no high-school diploma earned $18,734.
White House economists did not lay out wage trends for people with advanced degrees. But other studies have found that wages for those workers were flat between 2000 and 2004, when adjusted for inflation, while confirming the decline for people with undergraduate degrees.</p>

<p>When wages for people with bachelor’s degrees declined in the 1970s, the cause was a flood of baby boomers entering the job market. This time, economists say, much of the blame goes to trends familiar to workers with less education.</p>

<p>Off-shoring, which has shifted manufacturing and call-center jobs to Mexico and India, is increasingly affecting the white-collar sectors of engineering and software design. Companies have continued their long effort to replace salaried positions with low-paid, nonsalaried jobs, including part-time and freelance positions without benefits.</p>

<p>Those positions make up nearly half of the 6.5 million jobs created since 2001, said Paul Harrington, a labor economist at Northeastern University in Boston.</p>

<p>Harrington looked at the growth of salaried jobs during the past five economic recoveries and found they increased an average of 11.5 percent, compared with 2.5 percent during the current recovery.</p>

<p>“There’s clear deterioration in the college labor market,” he said. “The American economy just does not generate jobs the way it has historically.”</p>

<p>Alan Guarino, chief executive of Cornell International, an international staffing firm, sees a similar change in his own work as an employment recruiter. About 15 percent of workers with four-year college degrees are working at “gray collar” jobs below their skill level, such as in retail, because they cannot find better-paying jobs. Before 2001, the figure was about 10 percent.</p>

<p>Jonathan Hess, 25, took a low-paying job — and then found himself falling further behind.</p>

<p>A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Hess has been working as a clerk at a Borders Bookstore in San Francisco. Until earlier this month, he was earning $1,300 a month, living paycheck to paycheck. Then, the bookstore manager reduced the staff’s hours and forced workers to take vacation time early to avoid unpaid leave.

</p>