Nearly 1/2 College Grads are Underemployed

College graduates who can’t find jobs commensurate with their degree aren’t literally likely to be baristas, according to new research presented Monday. But the data also illustrate the difficulty, particularly for those who graduated in the aftermath of the Great Recession, in finding a good-paying job.

The New York Fed, in a blog post authored by researchers Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz, examined the plight of those who graduated between 2009 and 2013. The study found that some 45% of college grads worked in a “non-college job,” which is defined as a position in which fewer than 50% of the workers in that job need a bachelor’s degree.

The low-skilled jobs — including baristas, bartenders, and cashiers — accounted for 19.3% of underemployed recent college graduates, paying $23,584 on average.

The largest plurality, at 25.2%, of the underemployed were in office and administrative positions paying an average of $37,207. The highest-paying cohort of the underemployed were in information processing and business support, where 11.4% were earning an average of $59,059.

That’s still below the average pay for a job requiring a college degree, which is about $78,500, the report says. (That number is for all graduates, not just young graduates.)

More