D.C. a job haven for new grads
May 19, 2009
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| (AP file) |
New college graduates shunned by the gloomiest job market in decades are turning to Washington for some hope.
The District of Columbia was named the country’s best big city for recent college graduates, based on the job market and cost of living, in a recent list compiled by Richard Florida, a business professor at the University of Toronto and author of “Who’s Your City: How the Places We Pick Shape the Lives We Lead.”
And a new survey of recent grads by job search company CareerCast.com found D.C. second only to New York City among their most desirable locations, beating out Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco.
The Washington area is “still adding jobs in [service-providing industries], and in health care and in the federal sector,” said George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller. “And the jobs we’re losing in the region,” such as construction and retail sales, “tend not to be college graduate-type jobs.”
Diplomas in hand, twentysomethings are turning away from more imposing odds elsewhere.
A recent study by Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas found that unemployment nationwide among 20- to 24-year-olds rose to 13.9 percent in March, up from 9.2 percent a year ago. Among 25- to 29-year-olds, it reached nearly 11 percent in January, for the highest rate since 1983.
But John Challenger, the company’s chief executive, said the Washington area was a good place for recent graduates to look.
Though unemployment has risen to about 9 percent nationwide, and has soared to nearly 15 percent in beleaguered cities such as Detroit, it remains a relatively stable 6 percent in the Washington region.
“With all of the work that needs to be done to turn around this economy, and the large number of people in line to retire in D.C. in the next five years, it’s not a bad place to look,” Challenger said.
Both he and Fuller said, however, that the market was significantly better for those with at least a couple of years of experience, or a master’s degree.
“Many companies realized during the last recession that not hiring recent graduates was a mistake” because they weren’t filling their pipelines, Challenger said. “But now companies can justify filling [their] pipeline by hiring kids who’ve been in the job market for a few years.”
That’s good news for Christine Streich, a 2006 graduate of George Washington University who is finishing up two years of teaching high school in the Mississippi Delta before moving back to Washington this summer to look for a job in communications.
After job hunting in New York, she turned to her college home because “it seems like at least knowing people will be better than starting all over.”
A friend of Streich’s recently landed a job in Washington following a two-year unpaid internship with her new employer, but wouldn’t identify herself because the job was not official.
“It feels like everyone wants to move to D.C.,” the Princeton graduate said. “The people who seem to have the most luck are the ones who move here and start looking then. ... It’s important to be here and network in person.”
