The post-college job market is still very tough.
Three of five Minnesotans with a bachelor's degree don't have a full-time job in their second year after graduation. Neither do two out of three Minnesotans with a new associate's degree.
Those findings and several others come from a new piece by Alessia Leibert, an analyst at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
Minnesota is among 29 states participating in the Workforce Data Quality Initiative, a program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. Leibert took a look at the new set of data that combines education and workforce statistics to give a picture of how 2011 college graduates are faring in the job market.
Not all courses of study are equal, of course.
Among two-year degrees, precision metal working gave graduates the best chance of having a full-time job 12 months after graduation – about 45 percent. And the median second-year wage for those graduates is $39,246 per year.
People with training in business and accounting fared better than their peers. Half of those with more than two-year degrees but less than four-year degrees in business or accounting had a full-time job for the full second year after their graduation, compared to just over 20 percent for those with a two-year liberal arts degree.
Meanwhile, for those with a bachelor's degree, accounting and business offered a better than 60 percent chance of a full-time job after 12 months. Fields of study like psychology, education, biology and even nursing appeared to offer less opportunity.
