Fascinating.
I stumbled upon a chart that Gizmodo has from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing various jobs and the percentage of people in those jobs that have college degrees.
Some of the more interesting ones:
13.74% of parking lot attendants have a bachelors degree
29.80% of flight attendants have bachelors degrees
24.61% of Amusement and recreation attendants have bachelors degrees (really????)
21.62% of Customer service representatives have bachelors degrees.
Wow. I’d love to see this same set of statistics from 10 years ago to see how it has changed but clearly there are many people that are seeking lower skilled, lower paying jobs out of desperation. It’s not so much the job as the level of pay that they are sacrificing for. There are a bunch of jobs on the list that are respectable positions but I think the point is that the level of pay that they receive is lower than what you’d expect someone, who had invested in a college education, to receive.
Anyway, it’s an interesting list and worth looking at.
Also, did you watch the segment on 60 Minutes about the “99’ersâ€? It was a piece that interviewed various people that are close to running out of their unemployment benefits and highlights the sheer desperation that many people are experiencing. It was rather surreal to watch this after spending the weekend in Portland Oregon and seeing all the people running around downtown spending money. We went to one club where it was just packed with “fancy people†all spending $10+ per drink and wearing expensive clothes. I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with the differences in people’s situations. It’s such a short hop from extravagant spending to total desperation.