At Reuters by Wendell Marsh:
Wall Street may be losing its luster for new U.S. college graduates who are increasingly looking to the government for jobs that enrich their social conscience, if not their wallet.
In the boom years, New York’s financial center lured many of the brightest young stars with the promise of high salaries and bonuses. But the financial crisis has tainted the image of big banks, and with fewer financial jobs available, Uncle Sam may be reaping the benefit.
The government is the only person hiring right now. The government is the only organization creating new jobs. Or so they say. But how can the government, notoriously bloated and inefficient, able to expand when private industry in slimming down? Where in the world is the government getting all this expansion capital – raw money – to hire so many people?
That’s right: your wallet and my wallet.
Of the the roughly 1.6 million students who recently graduated from college, only 19.7 percent had secured jobs upon graduation in May, according to NACE’s 2009 student survey.
But Labor Department data shows employment in the Washington area has increased since early 2008, even as other regions have lost jobs.
“D.C. is the only place where we can point to that is actually adding jobs right now, and we also know that the government is hiring thousands of people to oversee both the (economic) stimulus package and all the associated projects,” said Marisa Di Natale, Senior Economist for Moody’s Economy.com.
Doesn’t make you all warm and fuzzy inside? You’ve got people in your family that are taking early retirements or losing their jobs while the government is busy fattening up. Something just ain’t right here.
Challenger said the excitement surrounding the election of President Barack Obama, who enjoyed huge support on college campuses, was also attracting young graduates to government and government-service contractors.
Britini Wilcher is one of them. Wilcher, a recent graduate from Spelman College in Atlanta, spent two summers as an intern for Merrill Lynch, which was hard hit by the financial crisis and taken over by Bank of America Corp last year.
When it came time to look for full-time employment, Wilcher wanted to do something with a bigger social impact.
The California native will be working in Washington for a government consulting firm where she will specialize in economic development.
“It’s becoming trendy to take your community into your hands and give back, which is a good thing,” Wilcher said. “People are empowered by the current political climate.”
The shift in attitudes is also apparent in graduate school enrollment. At Morehouse College, more graduates are opting to study public policy, said Douglas Cooper, director of career services at the college’s division of business and economics.
That is a big change for Morehouse, which has a long history of sending its students on to Wall Street, thanks in part to a relationship solidified by former college president and current Bank of America Chairman Walter Massey.
“Clearly, students who have historically planned on making a beeline to Wall Street have rethought that or are rethinking that,” Cooper said.
The share of Morehouse business students going into finance has decreased to 37.5 percent this year from 44 percent a year earlier, while the number of students going on to graduate school has almost doubled.
Most students who continue to graduate school this year are planning to go into government-related fields, Cooper said.
A long quote with nothing more than the same point here … except for something really special. Out of the gazillion recent college graduates coming out of the upmillion colleges, universities, and vocation schools, what are the odds that this article would pick one female from a female-only black school, and one male from a male-only black school?
Hmmm, both schools are in Atlanta, so maybe the author simply interviewed in downtown Atlanta, right? But what about Georgia Tech and Georgia State?
Nope. The author sought out the “correct” people for the article, making them only appear to be random. That action makes the author a liar and cheat, and as such destroys the credibility of the entire article. This is the Hope And Change you can continue to look forward to.
