Florida education majors have few options

From Ocala.com

by Joe Callahan

"Home's not a bad place," Kat McPadden, 21, said while giving her dad Ed McPadden a hug at her parent's home in Ocklawaha Wednesday afternoon, May 25, 2011 as her mother Gail McPadden pats her on the back. McPadden just graduated from FSU and moved back home with her parents due to the harsh economic climate. "I work as a substitute where ever they need me," McPadden said. McPadden has no idea whether she will have a job next year because of the budget cuts. There were 1 million less summer jobs in 2010, a 50 percent reduction from 1998-2010, for kids 16 to 19 years old. More college graduates than ever before are having to move home after graduation because of the slumping job market.

At a time when Kat McPadden should be thinking about how to decorate her classroom for the new school year, the recent Florida State University graduate instead is spending her days unpacking boxes back in her childhood bedroom.

Troubling signs for young workersSince the recession hit in December 2007, the number of workers ages 65 and older has increased by 15.6 percent, while the number of all workers ages 16 and older has decreased by 4.6 percent.

In 2006, just before the recession, 67 percent of all college graduates said they moved back home with their parents. In 2010, that number ballooned to 85 percent, according to a CNN Money poll conducted last year.

The average age of a fast-food restaurant worker has increased by 7.5 years in the last decade. In 2000, the average age of a fast-food worker was 22. Today it is 29.5, indicating a shift away from younger people.

Summer jobs for workers ages 16 to 19 have plummeted by 41.3 percent since December 2007.

The aspiring English teacher hopes to get a full-time job in August with the financially strapped Marion County School District, but for now she must settle for part-time work as a substitute teacher.

Few teachers will be hired for 2011-12, and district officials will not employ substitute teachers beginning July 1.

So for McPadden, moving back to her Moss Bluff home with her parents in a dismal job market was the only answer.

Like McPadden, Eugenio Torrens, who graduated from the University of Florida with a journalism degree on April 30, will move back in with his mother in Tampa. After jaw surgery over the summer, he will attempt to get a job — or at least some type of freelance position. If job opportunities do not open up, he will go back to school in the fall of 2012.

“If I can't find a (full-time) job by then, I will apply for graduate school,” he said.

McPadden, 21, and Torrens, 22, are among a growing number of recently graduated people who are forced to return home because their job prospects are so poor in this stagnant economy.

In 2006, just before the recession, 67 percent of all college graduates said they moved back home with their parents. In 2010, that number swelled to 85 percent, according to a CNN Money poll conducted last year.

The name for these college graduates: “Boomerang kids.”

McPadden and Torrens are discovering what economists already know — that the bad economy can be the most brutal on the youngest members of the workforce.

And it's not just college graduates who are feeling the pinch.

The job market for workers ages 16 to 19 is the worst it has been since 1949, the year the U.S. Department of Labor first compiled such statistics. Since the summer of 2007, summer jobs nationally have declined by 41.3 percent.

And with more senior citizens re-entering the workforce to make ends meet, jobs that usually went to young people are now being filled by people who, in better times, would be content and financially stable in retirement.

Since the recession hit in December 2007, the number of workers ages 65 and older has increased by 15.6 percent, while the number of all workers ages 16 and older has decreased by 4.6 percent, according to U.S. labor statistics.

With so many seniors remaining in or returning to the workforce, it takes several years longer for workers to be promoted within a company.

Vanguard High School Principal Rick Lankford said his 29-year-old son, Jeff, works part time in food service at a Mount Dora country club. Jeff Lankford wants to move to the next level. But jobs are harder to get, mainly because there are so many people with more experience looking for jobs. His son feels “trapped,” Lankford said.

Even fast-food jobs that once went to teenagers are now going to older employees.

The average age of a fast-food restaurant worker has increased from 22 in 2000 to 29.5 today, illustrating the shift away from younger people.

Brea Nail doesn't need the U.S. Department of Labor to tell her that. A couple of times a week, the North Marion High School senior drives 40 miles round-trip to Ocala to look for work, putting in applications at all types of businesses.

She has been to the mall, restaurants, fast-food chains, anywhere that might be willing to pay for her services. The bottom line: Few businesses are hiring teenagers.

“I'm desperate just to get one interview,” said Brea, who plans to attend College of Central Florida in the fall to complete her associate's degree.

For the few jobs that are available, students must calculate whether they can even afford to work now that gas prices have soared, hitting nearly $4 per gallon just a few weeks ago.

“They have to weigh the cost of the job,” said Colleen Wade, International Baccalaureate coordinator at Vanguard High School, a magnet school. “Can they really afford the job? It really is tough times for kids right now. It is scary during a time when the economy is as uncertain as it is.”

Career experts say there are hopeful signs amid the gloomy employment landscape, however.

Heather White, the interim director of the University of Florida's Career Resource Center, said more employers are recruiting on campus this year.

She said the National Association of College and Employers (NACE) projects that employers nationwide are expected to hire about 19 percent more graduates in 2010-11 than in 2009-10.

The NACE — www.naceweb.org — is a nonprofit agency that brings together human resource staffing professionals who help new college graduates find employment.

Many of those who can't find work choose to return to school to get graduate degrees, she said. But those students are finding it harder to get into programs because of the sheer number of people vying for a limited number of seats.

Overall, White believes students are learning valuable lessons.

“I do think the job market is more challenging than in recent years,” she said. “But I think students can learn how to navigate in this type of job market.”

The lesson is that once the students get a job and the economy bounces back, they can apply what they have learned today to find new jobs if there is another downturn in the future.

Deborah Jenkins, director of Marion County Community Technical & Adult Education, known as CTAE, said although the job situation does not seem very good for workers in their 20s, there is hope.

CTAE graduates are finding work in some vocational fields. In fact, 74 percent of graduates are being placed. The jobs showing positive signs of growth are health care and welding. However, these jobs are not always available locally, and students may have to move to find work.

The age range of students attending CTAE is 28 to 55. Jenkins has seen more students with bachelor's degrees attending CTAE to learn a new trade to make ends meet.

A bad job market typically attracts more people to CTAE.

“And not just the job market, but life itself,” Jenkins said, adding that some people have had to quit CTAE because they can't afford gas and other expenses. Jenkins said they do have programs to help students financially and there are “all kinds of financial aid available for students.”

CF President Charles “Chick” Dassance said that students in some careers, such as nursing, do have options after graduation.

And while more and more students head to community colleges to get degrees, Dassance said he is “very concerned about the slow job growth.”

“We can do the education part,” he said, “but we can't create the jobs.”

Contact Joe Callahan at 867-4113 or at joe.callahan@starbanner.com. Follow him on Twitter at JoeOcalaNews.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20110528/ARTICLES/110529720/1001/NEWS01?Title=Graduates-struggle-to-find-the-first-rung-on-the-career-ladder&tc=ar