Welcome to the year of overall financial confusion, compounded by over 2 years of financial uncertainty due to the pandemic. World’s government dumped an unreal amount of generally poorly distributed and managed resources into its economy, unrivaled even by the 2008 bailout, in its attempt to jolt the system from crashing. When cities shut down due to Covid it seemed that the end was near. Unemployment in the US reached its highest level ever, just shy of 15%, labor force participation declined to 60% – worst it’s been since 1970s, and $600/week checks did little to calm people, with cities like New York losing more than 4,500 people to the pandemic daily.
Shortly after, especially before vaccines became widely available, the pandemic became more of a financial burden, with death tolls dropping; prevention measures, like masking and social distancing, extensively implemented; and people learning to work on Zoom in every profession not requiring in-person interactions. Students accepted the inevitability of skipping on campus graduations and entered the job market at its probably the most unpredictable and perplexing time since any sort of tracking began.
Previously preferred jobs for students as a Starbucks barista became scarce to the point of no longer being seen as a desirable tempt job. Unionization followed. Internships dwindled. Teachers got tired of being underpaid, unable to live in the very neighborhoods where they worked; with rising prices causing them to take on second and even third jobs on the side. Remote learning was done so poorly, with most exit exams canceled and Zoom classes often unmonitored, that learning losses offered a guaranteed lowered future income for all.
In the past it was popular to go back to school during a recession. It made sense. With far fewer opportunities available, people weren’t really missing out on current income, and rather improved their standing with higher education. Yet, a recession used to be an about once-a-decade occurrence, and generally prompted a fairly quick recovery. After the pandemic-caused recession of 2020 the US recovered rather quickly, stock market hit unheard of heights, billionaires got even more billions, and unemployment dropped to 3.5% – the lowest in 50 years. Yes, jobs got cushy, work from home was hard to beat, salaries skyrocketed, and ‘quite quitting’ became a popular term, making leaving a job, especially as a junior professional, that much less attractive. In turn, as people stopped looking for new jobs as aggressively as before, it became that much harder to hire people.
Then it was time to pay for this capitalistic overreach in helping economies get through the pandemic. It began to resemble greed more than help, as financial matrix didn’t support the extra help government kept on offering through its programs. The resulting inflation caused the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates like never before, with no sign of stopping, likely crashing the US economy into a true recession. Major companies from Goldman Sachs to Facebook already began their layoffs, Venture Capital activity slowed to a crawl, and the country officially welcomed a bear market, with rather unprecedented stock market losses. Europe is getting ready to freeze in the winter due to compromised fuel supply from Russia; Africa is getting ready to starve, due to lack of grain supply from Ukraine; and UK, still reeling from its Brexit consequences, just replaced its Prime Minister, with an economic plan that sunk markets even further.
Back to graduating students, and the upcoming obstacles of the second in 2.5 years upcoming recession economy. They say, “What goes up, must come down”, yet so many are still feeling like they failed to recover from pandemic, let alone benefit from last year’s market surge. Severely overworked and permanently stressed, current professionals are occupying every given moment of every available therapist’ time, while even vacationing as a break often brings more stress, than relief, with constant travel challenges, overpriced and poorly ran resorts, and the dangers of being arrested all over the world just for being a US citizen in countries like Venezuela, Russia, and even China, as well as many more. Still, finding a job, often any job, can be quite challenging for an inexperienced fresh grad.
LinkedIn recent study concluded that most people get their new jobs through ‘surface connections’. What do these connections seek from junior or entry-level resumes? What will happen after the initial contact or a few rounds of interviews? How to negotiate the best salary? What industries, companies and professions are the most in-demand and are the most lucrative? How to get the necessary trade training, beyond secondary education, and how can it be done without paying for it yourself? And the least expected, how not to fail a background check, once an offer is made?
In a down economy, these questions become often pieces of an unsolvable puzzle, causing many grads to fail to get their first job for up to a year after graduation, or just settle for a job with no career prospects. Students are often left high and dry after graduation, and many for-profit colleges having to close doors after years of unfulfilled promises and rather useless degrees. Government assistance programs, be it from a state or done on a federal level, seldom bring the desired results, and for-profit employers are certainly not being transparent, hoping to take advantage of inexpensive, or even free labor. Entrepreneurship generally fails immediately after graduation, and preparation for the real world, even with parental resources, often ranges between nonexistent and scarce.
Most of the time solution to these challenges resembles an entry level position with experienced professionals’ skills. Nevermind logic, reason, or fairness. Wealth accumulation trickles down too slowly, if at all, and the country is decades away after actually benefiting from Reaganomics. Seems that the answer lies with the very institutions most poorly equipped to help after graduation – higher education establishments. After all, when was the last time your college really helped you get a new job after graduation?
