Unemployment for workers without bachelor’s degrees fell to the lowest rate on record in May, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.
The extremely low joblessness for less-educated workers is a sign that the decadelong expansion is benefiting economically vulnerable people and is reaching workers at at the margins of the labor force.
The unemployment rate for workers over the age of 25 without four-year degrees fell to 3.4%, the lowest in records extending back to 1992, just barely beating out the marks set in the dot-com boom. The unemployment figures are adjusted for seasonal variation.
People without advanced degrees suffered the worst of the recession. Workers without high school diplomas, for example, saw unemployment rates of up to 16% in the wake of the financial crisis.
As overall unemployment has fallen, though — first during the presidential administration of Barack Obama and then under President Trump — groups that normally bear high joblessness have seen record-low unemployment. In May, unemployment for high school dropouts was just 5.4%, nearly as low as it’s been since the bureau has been tracking the figures.
Black and Hispanic workers, too — both groups that generally have relatively high joblessness — have enjoyed historically low unemployment in recent months.
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