September 28, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Occupations with the most job openings for college graduates, 2004-14

"Pure-college" occupations will provide about 6.9 million openings over the 2004-14 decade for college graduates who are entering an occupation for the first time.

[Chart data—TXT]

Pure college occupations are those in which at least 60 percent of current workers aged 25-44 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, fewer than 20 percent have a high school diploma or less education, and fewer than 20 percent have taken college courses but do not have a bachelor’s degree.

Despite high numbers of job openings, jobseekers can face strong competition when trying to enter some of the occupations on the chart. Occupations that offer high earnings and prestige, such as management analysts, attract many qualified workers. Sometimes, the number of qualified people who want these jobs can be greater than the number of openings.

Some of the occupations on the chart, such as lawyers and physicians and surgeons, require more education than a bachelor’s degree. In other occupations, education requirements are more flexible. More than one-fourth of computer software engineers had a master’s degree in 2005, for example, but most of these workers did not have education beyond a bachelor’s degree.

This information is from the Employment Projections program. Find out more in "The 2004-14 job outlook for college graduates," by Olivia Crosby and Roger Moncarz, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Fall 2006. 

 

Related TED article:

• Healthcare employment for workers without a bachelor’s degree