College graduates struggle to find jobs amid COVID-19 pandemic

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — (AP) — With graduation looming, the future is looking a lot less bright than it did just a few months ago for college seniors.

They are entering a job market flooded with tens of millions of workers who have lost their jobs amid the coronavirus, The Kansas City Star reports.

Margaret Simms, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute, described the situation as “dire," saying experienced workers will be the first to return to work as businesses reopen and move beyond skeleton staffing.

Erica Overfelt, a senior journalism student from the University of Missouri who lost her job at Columbia’s Arc Recreation Center early in the pandemic, knows firsthand the anxiety of leaving school and stepping into the unknown. She said she feels that college students have been “left in the dark.”

After a brief stay with her parents in Jefferson City after the campus shut down, she is back in her apartment, struggling to pay the rent.

Juaquin Robles, a 23-year-old New York University senior visiting MU through a fellowship with the Missouri Democratic Party, originally planned to move to Washington, D.C., post-graduation. Now, he’s not so sure.

“It seems like a huge setback for me, because it doesn’t seem like I’m going to be able to move forward with the economy that is worsening at the moment,” Robles said.

Students still in college, who thought they had summer gigs locked down, are also grappling with undetermined employment. And there’s no assurance that even their part-time jobs will return.

“The effects are definitely most acute for those people who right this minute are graduating — the class of 2020 — those college graduates, but also there are impacts that are going to feed back onto sophomores and juniors,” Donna Ginther, director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas, said.

Nicole Smith, a University of Missouri sophomore, was working three jobs when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She moved home to Rogersville after she lost her hours as a hostess at Texas Roadhouse. Her other jobs, nanny and teaching assistant, were not enough to cover the $570 rent on her Columbia apartment, let alone groceries and car insurance.

[MrNoahsamen]

It really come down to what you are major. In college you don’t major what you want, you major what society need. Society didn’t tell to go university to get a bachelors. You need to major daily important things still mandatory till dis day. Medical everyone needs a doctor. Engineering everyone need technology. Lawyer to claim your innocent. Accountant who work on your tax. Physics or chemistry we need science to help the world. We don’t need generic business boys or gen-Ed girls anymore. Now is the future.

[Winkxgirl]

This isn't just during the pandemic; recent college graduates were having it tough before too. I have a Biological Science degree and I had to start my own business just to be employed. Now, unfortunately, my business has been hit hard by this pandemic, but I'll find something else: God willing.

[vince]

1:58 How pathetic that we have to be "grateful." Please don't do a Masters so early in your "career."