Business Majors Are the Most Underemployed Graduates in America

You have to laugh. Chest thumping proponents of economic growth are insisting that one of the reasons Americans can't find jobs is that they dont have the right skills. And that one of the reasons they dont have the right skills is that they have 'wasted' their time in college getting degrees in 'useless' subjects like art, history and English.

Only it turns out that the university graduates most likely to be underemployed are, guess who?, those majoring in business management and administration.

The reasons for this seemingly counterintuitive outcome are many.  Such majors are a dime a dozen, almost literally. That is the major most likely to be offered by everything from junior colleges to vast commuter schools in urban areas to private diploma mills. All because they sell potential students on ostensible 'demand' for such training and the 'marketability' of such degrees. But the claims are misleading. Businesses, like every other enterprise in the hiring game, are looking for evidence of excellence and differentiation. A common degree from a common institution provides no advantage.

A second reason for the underemployment stats is that the emphasis on so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) training is that it de-emphasizes some of the more important skills businesses need: reasoning, the ability to write and speak effectively, ethics, working collaboratively with others, tolerance of differences and so forth. These are much more likely to be inculcated during discussions of literature, history, philosophy and sociology or anthropology than in courses about accounting or business administration.

The reality is that finding a job in this economy requires knowledge of the world beyond the balance sheet and the statistics manual. Those who are equipped to communicate, interact, convince and lead will be more successful than those who have only a piece of paper saying they took courses readily available the world over. JL

Vivian Giang reports in Business Insider:

English majors might traditionally get a bad rap for job prospects, but it's the business majors who are having a hard time finding work in their field of choice.
According to PayScale's  "Underemployment In America" report released on Tuesday , graduates who studied  business management and administration were 8.2 times more likely to be underemployed compared to their classmates.
This ratio of underemployment is almost twice as high as for English majors, who were 4.6 times more likely to be underemployed than their peers.
"Underemployment" rates measure the number of workers who are highly skilled, but in low-paying jobs and not utilizing their expertise and experience, or who are working part-time jobs but would prefer to be in a full-time position.
"The problem with business majors is that it's so common," Katie Bardaro, lead economist at PayScale, tells us. "There's so many of them and not enough jobs to go around."
Without an MBA, undergraduate business majors have it pretty tough, says PayScale's report, which identified the 10 most underemployed undergraduate majors based on an analysis of 40 million career profiles on its site.
Other majors with high levels of underemployment were  criminal justice (6.9 times more likely to be underemployed),  drama and theater arts majors (6.9 times),  anthropology (5.8 times), l iberal arts (5.6 times), history (5.5 times), and psychology (5 times), according to PayScale.
Of the different types of schools PayScale looked at, business schools also had the highest relative ratio of underemployment (1.17 times the national average), whereas engineering schools had the lowest (0.36 times the national average).
What does this mean for the bigger economy?
"Underemployment can have lasting effects on local economies," PayScale's report said. "As fewer people are able to find the jobs that match their qualifications or desired hours, less money cycles through the economy, and businesses continue to hold back on hiring. It is a compounding cycle that can mean real trouble for the metros on our list."

In short, education can help you better your skills and develop valuable relationships with others, but it's up to individuals to   think like innovators and disruptors and identify trends that will set them apart in our rapidly evolving global workforce.