Job Market

They're facing high unemployment, depressed wages and loads of debt — and they're only in their 20s. Welcome to life after college. Though the labor market is recovering slowly, graduates this spring have only slightly better chances of landing jobs than grads did in the depths of the recession, experts say. Over the last year, unemployment has averaged 9.4 percent for college graduates under age 25. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington-based Economic...

Members of the Class of 2012, As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you're picking up today. You're screwed. Well, not exactly. But you won't have it easy. First, you're going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you're heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year's class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a man typically married at age 23 and a woman at age 20. With a high school education, the husband could find a steady job to support his wife and, later, their children. Today, that family would stand only a 50 percent chance of living above the poverty level, says Timothy Smeeding, a public policy and economics professor at Syracuse University. Gone is the ample supply of well-paid blue-collar jobs that allowed earlier generations to establish households in their late teens or early 20s. Now, the job market is more competitive, making it difficult for young adults to become financially self-sufficient and take the traditional steps to adulthood: career, marriage and child-rearing.

They're facing high unemployment, depressed wages and loads of debt — and they're only in their 20s. Welcome to life after college. Though the labor market is recovering slowly, graduates this spring have only slightly better chances of landing jobs than grads did in the depths of the recession, experts say. Over the last year, unemployment has averaged 9.4 percent for college graduates under age 25. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington-based Economic...

Marge Thomas has spent the last three decades helping the less fortunate find jobs. But the 64-year-old recently announced that she would retire from her post as president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake Inc. in December. She said she'll leave with good memories and proud accomplishments. During her tenure, she widely expanded job services to people hardest to employ: those with mental and physical disabilities, criminal backgrounds or leaving public assistance.

Cynthia MacKinnon says she is working at her dream job, thanks to training and encouragement she received at the Caroline Center in East Baltimore. The nonprofit center, run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic religious order, celebrates its 15th anniversary Thursday with a salute to MacKinnon and others who acquired education and job skills within its walls. "We are flourishing," said Sister Patricia McLaughlin, the center's executive director. "Meeting all these wonderful women and watching them blossom has been a blessing to us. " More than 1,500 women have completed the center's employment readiness programs since it opened its doors on Somerset Street.

First, "E.R." bumped "L.A. Law" from the TV lineup.Now, life is mimicking art.Faced with a glut of lawyers in the job market, undergraduates in record numbers are forgoing jurisprudence for a dose of medicine and business acumen.Applications to medical schools nationwide have been steadily rising while they dropped off dramatically at law schools this year.At the same time, the bust in business school enrollments, forecast since the stock market crash of 1987, is now a boom. Some master's of business administration programs are seeing increases of as much as 39 percent in applicants this year.

One on One is a weekly feature offering excerpts of interviews conducted by The Evening Sun with newsworthy business and civic leaders. Roberta Kaskel is assistant dean of the Career Services Office at the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Law.Q. What is the job market like now for graduating attorneys? Is it more difficult for them to find jobs because of the recession?A.The recession has had a definite impact on the job market nationally, significantly in the Northeast quadrant.

THE JOB MARKET is looking up for students. This school year, employers are expected to hire 14.5 percent more new college graduates than they did last year, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That positive sign - the third consecutive year of projected hiring increases - might lead seniors and recent graduates to think a job offer will be in the bag. But no matter how strong the hiring environment, landing a job (at least one that you want) takes more initiative.

Other than majors in engineering, computer science and health care, graduates this year may feel like a catastrophe has struck the job market.How catastrophic? A federal recruiter who had signed up to pick graduates at the University of Texas-Austin called Barbara Euresti, the university's liberal arts placement center director, to announce that the recruiting trip was canceled.It seems that his department has been eliminated and he asked if Ms. Euresti could help him find a job.If you have friends graduating this year, a great gift is the encouragement to anticipate tricky interview questions.

As the school year draws to a close, one group of Baltimore students isn't making plans for summer. They deflect discussions about courseloads for next year, and shy away from questions about which colleges they hope to attend. They don't talk about "the future. " For hundreds of Filipino children who made the journey to Baltimore when the city school system sent recruiters across the world to recruit their parents for teaching positions in 2006, this year marks bitter ends and uncertain beginnings.

Maryland employers added 1,500 jobs in March — thanks entirely to growth in the private sector — but the state's unemployment rate inched up as the pool of would-be workers expanded more rapidly. The jobless rate was 6.6 percent in March, up from 6.5 percent in February, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated Friday. That's because the labor force, the number of adults working or looking for work, grew by 4,200 people in March, according to the agency. An improving economic situation typically brings out more job seekers, as people who had been discouraged by earlier difficulties get back in the hunt.

Maryland's employers added 8,000 jobs in February, the latest sign of the state's economic recovery, labor officials said Friday. It's the sixth month in a row of jobs gains. The state's jobless rate remained unchanged at 6.5 percent from a month earlier, but that's nearly 2 percentage points lower than the 8.3 percent national average, preliminary figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show. "Employment is at its highest level since September 2008," Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander Sanchez said during a conference call.

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT Investing in the housing market was once practically a no brainer. Through the downturn, however, many of the fixed  assumptions about housing - that property values would  always rise and equity would naturally grow - became variable, leaving many consumers questioning the extent to which the real estate market was a good investment option for them, or if now was the time to purchase that new home they have always wanted....

For months, Ravens fans have been trading in their Friday business attire, work uniforms and school clothes for purple-hued garments - flaunting their support for the team. But this Purple Friday could be the most extreme yet. As the AFC North champions prepare to face the Houston Texans in a home playoff game this weekend, some schoolchildren will get to shed uniforms to don team colors. National Aquarium staff members are wearing Ravens jerseys or purple shirts in place of the usual blue polos, and in Annapolis, Gov. Martin O'Malley has ordered purple illumination for some state buildings and declared an official "Purple Friday" for state workers.

Cynthia MacKinnon says she is working at her dream job, thanks to training and encouragement she received at the Caroline Center in East Baltimore. The nonprofit center, run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic religious order, celebrates its 15th anniversary Thursday with a salute to MacKinnon and others who acquired education and job skills within its walls. "We are flourishing," said Sister Patricia McLaughlin, the center's executive director. "Meeting all these wonderful women and watching them blossom has been a blessing to us. " More than 1,500 women have completed the center's employment readiness programs since it opened its doors on Somerset Street.

It will be a summer of unemployed anxiety, menial jobs or expensive escapes for most of the approximately 19,000 seniors who are graduating from Maryland colleges this month.Facing what many describe as the worst job market for new college graduates in the past generation, many newly minted baccalaureates are hard pressed to land one of the shrinking number of career-track jobs available this year.Because of the job shortage, many graduates are settling for clerical or part-time work, or escaping the likelihood of rejection by traveling or enrolling in graduate school.

They got their education during good economic times, but the nation's graduating college seniors are about to enter the job market just as conditions have rapidly taken a turn for the worse. The federal government said yesterday that U.S. employers have cut jobs for three months straight, a total of 232,000 positions gone. The number of jobs lost in March - 80,000 - was the most in five years, when the country was struggling to throw off the lingering effects of the last recession. Economists are once again bandying about the "R" word on a daily basis.

Tiffany Burgess, 15, is just finishing her freshman year at Aberdeen High School, but she has already set her sights on an advanced degree. When a Harford County company offered a free business literacy course, she jumped at the chance. "I already know that I am a people person," the aspiring law student said. "I like helping people solve problems. The course helped me with communication skills. " Burgess and 11 other teen members of the Aberdeen Boys and Girls Club said they feel more prepared for the workforce after completing Career Launch, 14 weekly sessions at Rite-Aid's Mid-Atlantic Customer Support Center in Aberdeen.

A year ago, Washington marketing associate Tara Miller felt lucky just to have a job in her field. So while she wanted to work in Baltimore — where she could be closer to her boyfriend — Miller stayed put at her job in D.C. But by March of this year, she was feeling antsy. "I was poking around and ended up seeing some openings," including an account executive position at Himmelrich PR in Baltimore, Miller said. "I threw in my resume and ended up getting it," she said.