Companies Are Hiring Fewer People With Graduate Degrees (msn.com)
Possibly many reasons but the elephant in the room is the shrinking workforce population, and especially the young cohort due to the fertility rate collapse.
For a long time, college degrees were a third party certification/seal of approval that helped employers separate out the applications. At the peak of the dot com era, it was reported that most tech employers received 100 or more applications for each job opening but only hired 1-2% of applicants – contrary to the constant claim of a shortage of tech workers
Now the situation is flipping the other way – and some employers have dropped all degree requirements. The Baby Boom and the Baby Boom Echo were unique periods in our history that led to highly competitive job markets. With less competition for jobs, there will be less need to be over qualified just to get hired.
U.S. Fertility rate from the peak in 1959/1960 to almost the present. About 20 years after the peak birth rate, that peak population bump was competing for jobs simultaneously in about 1980. You can see why the unemployment rate dropped a lot in the mid-1990s (hint – see the fertility rate in 1975):
The Master degree has been the cash cow of colleges and universities everywhere. If this trend expands, it threatens the financial stability of many universities.
