As graduation day looms closer, many seniors are beginning to seriously contemplate the realities of the real world, complete with that ubiquitous leap onto the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. With the economy showing signs of recession, however, entering the job market is not necessarily an encouraging prospect.
"Economic growth has declined in the last nine months and businesses are wrestling with the question of whether or not they should be hiring," said Stephen Mangum, interim dean of the Max M. Fisher College of Business and professor of management of human resources.
Despite the current slowdown, experts say there is no need for panic, with more jobs available for college graduates, according to the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University.
"As employers started to anticipate their hiring for this year, we saw an overall increase of about seven percent for the bachelor's market and a little bit of an improvement for the MBA market," said Philip Gardner, director of CERI , accompany that conducts an annual national survey of employment trends.
Driving the need for fresh college graduates is the large number of baby boomers reaching retirement age.
"The demographics are very positive for people entering the labor force at the moment," Mangum said. "The baby boom generation is exiting the labor force ... and you have relatively low cohorts entering that segment of the market."
This phenomenon was reflected in the recruiting trends reported by CERI for large employers but not as strongly for small to medium-sized employers, which Gardner said are more cautious about new hires.
"The large employers are looking at retirement and they are looking to identify, attract and recruit a large number of new bachelor's degree graduates to fill the spots that are going to be opening up over the next three to eight years," Gardner said. "Those employers were not reacting to any of the economic changes that were already being signaled throughout the economy."
In general, Mangum said there is a feeling of caution.
"It's not a general across the board decline in terms of employment opportunities," Mangum said, "but there is a cautious feeling out there, where as eight or nine months ago there was an exuberance as to what was going on in the marketplace."
Graduates who have not already secured jobs to find employment might struggle after collecting their diplomas.
"College recruiting is over for the year," Gardner said. "So the students who graduate in the next month or so who did not start looking early, who didn't make much effort during the year or who are not well connected ... it might be pretty tough to start. A lot of employers aren't going to be looking during the summer, they're just going to push their hiring needs into the fall and start over again."
Gardner said there are still jobs out there and recommends graduates without a job already lined up utilize campus career services.
"They're going to have to target where they go. They're going to have to use their networks," he said.
It's not too late to find a job, said Allison Plunkett, a career counselor at Ohio State's Career Connections, who recommended seniors start networking as soon as possible.
"Start contacting professionals in the area you want to work," Plunkett said. "Meet with them, get information and advice about the career you want to pursue."
Plunkett also said talking to faculty is a good way to procure industry contacts.
Some sectors of the economy are also more affected by the current economy.
"We'll probably see a tightening in sectors like retail, hospitality, food and lodging ... sectors that depend on people driving and people spending discretionary money that they may not have right now," Gardner said. "Tourism, recreation, real estate, those kind of companies will be affected first, along with some of the other peripheral business-related activities."
Gardner said the future is not so bleak, at least for college students.
"The good news for college students in general, without regard to different majors, is that unless the economy goes really off-rail, which nobody expects," he said. "College labor will be generally better off than other segments of the labor market just because of this retirement situation."
Briony Clare can be reached at clare.6@osu.edu.
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