Interest In & Exposure to Careers: YouScience released results from their aptitude-based career guidance assessments taken by high school students nationwide in 2021. The analysis found that students have higher aptitude than interest in many career areas, especially those with significant predicted job growth. For example, students had more than three times the aptitude for advanced manufacturing careers than interest and more than two times the aptitude for computer technology careers than interest. The report also revealed the effect of gender stereotypes on interest in careers. For instance, females had a much greater difference between aptitude and interest for advanced manufacturing careers than males. The authors conclude that students need more exposure to a variety of careers to find a match between their talents, interests and goals.
Impacts of Industry-recognized Credentials: A recent study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute examined how completing industry-recognized credentials (IRCs) in high school impacted students’ short-term postsecondary education and employment outcomes. Researchers utilized data from Texas high school students who graduated between 2017 and 2019 to uncover the following:
- IRC completion was weakly associated with a higher likelihood of employment in the short term.
- IRC completion was associated with a 9% increase in annual earnings in the short term, with the largest benefits to students not enrolled in a postsecondary institution and those who completed an IRC in education, cosmetology or transportation.
- IRC completion is positively correlated with postsecondary enrollment and persistence. In fact, students who completed an IRC were 3 percentage points more likely to remain in postsecondary education for a second year.
- The majority of students who completed an IRC were not pursuing education or employment in their IRC field of study.
- While CTE concentrators as well as Hispanic, Asian and higher-achieving students were most likely to earn IRCs, the high school one attended is the most important predictor of earning an IRC.
Labor Market Experiences of Recent Graduates: In May 2022, Cengage Group conducted a survey of respondents who completed a degree or non-degree postsecondary education program within the past 12 months to better understand recent graduates’ perspectives on the labor market. The following are some of the report’s key findings:
- Half of recent graduates had second thoughts about the program they were studying, but felt it was too late to switch, with non-degree graduates experiencing less of this regret.
- Nearly half of recent graduates didn’t apply for entry-level jobs because they felt underqualified, with degree graduates slightly more likely to report this. About 60% of graduates found a job within 12 months in 2022, which is 19 percentage points higher compared to 2021, and degree graduates found jobs quicker than non-degree graduates.
- Almost all graduates said they would pursue online training if their employer covered the cost.
- Roughly 61% of graduates think that employers should stop requiring a two- or four-year degree for many occupations.
Employer Policies & Economic Mobility: Recently, WorkRise released a report that summarizes research on employer policies and how these affect economic security and mobility for individuals who have faced historical exclusion in the labor market. Researchers specifically studied pay, scheduling, leave, hiring, retention, work systems, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) employer policies. Overall, the report found that promising practices for increasing economic mobility exist in compensation, hiring, promotion, scheduling, work systems and DEI policies, without negatively impacting a firm’s performance. However, researchers emphasized that there are gaps and exceptions to these promising practices in research that must be studied further.
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