Last spring, I wrote a WorkPuzzle blog on the dismal job prospects for new college grads. In that discussion, I demonstrated how “underemployment” has become a reality for many college seniors looking to start their careers. 
If you do not remember reading this article (or you’re new to WorkPuzzle within the last year), it might be helpful to review it before you try to digest what we are going to discuss today.
Last year, BusinessWeek and several other media venues were spouting optimism concerning a problem that seemed to be hanging on for much too long—adult children moving back home after college.
Why the optimism? Because there was a small increase in the number of adult children who were leaving their parents' homes and setting up their own households.
Buried in the research was a shocking metric–over 20 million young Americans find themselves in this state. Even under very optimistic conditions, researchers admitted that this huge backlog of stagnant labor could only diminish to about 11 million within the next five years.
Well, so much for optimistic conditions.
The Associated Press reported last week that for the graduating class of 2012, over 50% of the new college grads will either be jobless or underemployed.
Here are some highlights from the article:
“Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans…
About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of new bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. Out of this 1.5 million, there is an even split of those who are unemployed versus underemployed…
According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors and accountants.
Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers.
College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely…”
So, what does this mean for the real estate industry? As I mentioned last year in the second part of the WorkPuzzle discussion, some of these new college grads may be well-suited to start a career as a real estate agent.
Rather than rehash the points I made in the previous discussion (all of which are still relevant today), I thought I’d share a quick story from a client I spent time with last week.
This company is a large, independent, multi-generational real estate company on the West Coast. They are leaders in their marketplace and have a long track record and heritage of success.
Here’s the problem: This company has an agent base where a large majority of their agents are above 55 years old. This data didn’t impact me until I saw the demographic ranges they shared during our discussion.
I don’t have the data in front of me, but I believe they had cataloged demographic age ranges as high as 55 to 65 years old, 65 to 75 years old, and over 75 years old….AND, a high percentage of their agents were in these categories. The lowest age range category was “below 40.” And for this company, less than 20% of the agents were demographically in this category.
This company is not an anomaly in the real estate industry. It is representative of the norm. Most companies that we work with find themselves in this situation.
So, here’s my challenge to you: Step back and look at this problem from a 30,000 foot view. Real estate companies are stuck with an aging workforce that will limit their growth and ability to change in the upcoming years. Society is stuck with a large group of educated and aspiring young people who do not have adequate career opportunities. There has to be a way to connect these dots.
Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.
