Gloomy Job Outlook Spoils Graduation Day

Graduating college students nervously eyed the calendar in recent months as graduation day approached. Warm spring days that should have been spent in a celebratory mood were clouded by a gloomy outlook for one of the worst job markets in years.

About 2 million recent graduates are unemployed, CBS News reported in April. Like people stacking up at the bottom of an escalator, new graduates are bumping into the last few semesters' graduates as they compete for dwindling job openings.

Competition is fiercer still from experienced workers who were recently laid off and even from recent retirees seeking to jump back into the labor market to pad leaky retirement accounts.

Companies planned to hire 22 percent fewer new graduates from the class of 2009 than they did from last year's class, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That research "ends a string of positive hiring reports for new college graduates dating back to 2004," the organization reported.

"More than two-thirds of employers said the economic situation forced them to re-evaluate their college hiring plans, and nearly all of those said they have decreased their planned number of hires," NACE executive director Marilyn Mackes said in announcing the numbers in March.

For grads, the grim outlook, along with the prospects of no health care, looming student loans and other debt and –- gulp –- the possibility of having to move back in with parents, can create a noxious stew of anxiety.

"I'm graduating from college in less than a month. I should be excited, right?" University of Minnesota student Andrew Newman wrote in a Minneapolis Star Tribune opinion piece in April. "But I'm not celebrating -- I'm freaking out."

What's a new graduate to do?

Grad School

In the face of a gloomy job market, some students are opting to pursue more education.

Registrations for the GMAT, the test needed for acceptance into most graduate programs, were up 10 percent in 2008 over 2007, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Graduate schools across the country are seeing upticks in enrollment, some as many as 20 percent, Nathan Bell, director of research and policy analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month.

"When the economy goes down, graduate school applications go up," Bell told the newspaper. "We saw this in 2001 and 2002, and we're seeing it now. I expect we're going to see it next year, too."

Peace Corps

Meanwhile, government-sponsored public service programs are flooded with applications.

In an April speech, President Barack Obama noted that the Peace Corps had three applications for every open slot last year and that 35,000 young adults applied for 4,000 positions with Teach For America.

Obama was at an event signing legislation that increased the ranks of the service organization Americorps, which had a 400 percent increase in applications in the previous four months.

"We need your service right now, at this moment in history," Obama told an audience at the SEED School of Washington. "I'm asking you to help change history's course."

Texas

For graduates who are determined to find a more traditional job out there somewhere, there's always the Lone Star State. In a recent Forbes magazine ranking, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin were the top three cities for recent college grads, respectively.

"Spurred by low costs of living and booming energy and tech industries, these metro areas have a lot to offer new professionals seeking a home," the magazine reported.

Here's one last tip. Stressed-out students would do well to step away from the gloomy headlines, Matthew R. Hanson, staff psychologist and coordinator of career services at the University of Minnesota, told Newman in the Star Tribune story.

"There's only so much information you can take in and make sense of," he said. "Reading all the news about job trends isn't good for anyone."