LOS ANGELES — The job market for this year’s college graduates appears to be on the upswing as economic forecasts show seniors will have a better shot at employment than in past years and more businesses are recruiting at campus
LOS ANGELES — The job market for this year’s college graduates appears to be on the upswing as economic forecasts show seniors will have a better shot at employment than in past years and more businesses are recruiting at campus job fairs this spring.
Those positive signs were present at California State University-Long Beach recently when an event attracted more than 90 potential employers, about 50 percent more than last year. About 5,000 students, many of whom had swapped their T-shirts and sandals for a more formal look, handed out resumes and hoped to replace anxiety about their post-graduation employment prospects with the growing optimism that recent national reports project.
Shaun Bernard, 23, a marketing and human resources major from Long Beach who wants a job as a recruiter, was sharply dressed in a black suit and tie as he chatted with representatives from Northwestern Mutual, Target, Enterprise car rental and others.
“It’s definitely a little bit scary out there,” he said, recalling how friends from prior graduating classes patched together part-time work or survive as coffee shop baristas. But he added he’s hopeful he’ll find his “dream job.”
A recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found businesses expect to hire 9.5 percent more college graduates this year than last, broadening a recovery since 2009 when such hiring plummeted 22 percent.
“Hiring projections by industry indicate positive movement nearly across the board,” the report said, with the strongest demand for business, engineering and computer science majors.
Similar good news was delivered by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, which expects hiring of new college graduates to rise 7 percent.
“Employers are now more optimistic about the college labor market than at any time since 2007,” its report stated. Salaries of recent college graduates average about $36,000, it showed, varying by industry and major: electrical engineering majors made $55,000 and psychology majors $35,230.
Despite the economic improvement, Philip Gardner, the institute’s director, said there won’t be enough jobs, and he urged seniors to start searching aggressively long before graduation. Otherwise, he said, they may wind up serving lattes, part of a generation that’s overqualified and underpaid.
“There’s a lot of human capital out there with degrees who are floundering,” he said.
Compared with graduates in the recession’s depth, this year’s college seniors appear to be more flexible about possibly moving out of state for jobs, said Robin Lee, associate director of Cal State-Long Beach’s Career Development Center.
“They’ve seen older friends flounder,” she said. “So these students are more motivated to go out and seek employment.”
During the recession’s bottom, graduates faced tough competition not only among themselves but also with much older people who were laid off and willing to take reduced salaries, said Halvern Logan, a recruiter for Prudential Insurance Co. of America. But now that is easing, he said, as he handed Cal State-Long Beach students brochures about careers in financial planning. He expects to hire about 10 new college graduates for jobs in the Los Angeles area this year, twice as many as last year.
“This is the best moment I’ve seen for seniors for four years,” he said. “There is a lot more optimism.”
Of course, many college seniors worry about how they will pay large education loans and whether they must move back home to avoid paying rent. (A recent Pew Research Center report showed nearly 22 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34 lived with parents or older relatives in 2010, the highest since the 1950s and up from 11 percent in 1980.) And many will attend graduate school to postpone the job search.
