by Calculated Risk on 5/13/2019 12:51:00 PM

The first graph shows the unemployment rate by four levels of education (all groups are 25 years and older) through April 2019.

Unfortunately this data only goes back to 1992 and includes only two recessions (the stock / tech bust in 2001, and the housing bust/financial crisis). Clearly education matters with regards to the unemployment rate - and all four groups are generally trending down.

Click on graph for larger image.

Note: This says nothing about the quality of jobs - as an example, a college graduate working at minimum wage would be considered "employed".

This brings up an interesting question: What is the composition of the labor force by educational attainment, and how has that been changing over time?

Note: Thanks to Tim Duy, Economics Professor at the University of Oregon, and Josh Lehner, at the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis.

Here is some data on the U.S. labor force by educational attainment since 1992.

Currently, over 58 million people in the U.S. labor force (25 and over) have a Bachelor's degree or higher.  This is 41.2% of the labor force, up from 26.2% in 1992.

This is the only category trending up.  "Some college" has declined recently, and both "high school" and "less than high school" have been trending down for some time.

Based on current trends, probably more than half the labor force will have at least a bachelor's degree around 2030 or so.

Some thoughts: Since workers with bachelor's degrees typically have a lower unemployment rate, this is probably a factor in pushing down the overall unemployment rate over time.

Also, I'd guess more education means less labor turnover, and that education is a factor in fewer weekly claims (I haven't seen data on unemployment claims by education).

A more educated labor force is one of the reasons I remain optimistic about the future.