Unemployment During a Recession

Question

So I looked up the unemployment statistics of the UE/E schools during the last recession on BW.

Made it into a spreadsheet and graph so that it might be easier to digest. It's interesting that at graduation even HBS had 19% unemployeed during 2002, while Johnson had 48% unemployement in 2003. Take a look, seems clear the better the school the better they fair.

On another note. If you look at the hiring number during the last recession, a very large percentage of the hires during the last recession was in finance. Consulting contracted a bit. So I don't know what would happen this time.

Also interesting to note, Anderson and Haas started the recession earlier than the other school in 2001 rather than 2002. I'm assume it was related to the tech boom being on the west coast.

Anonymous · Answer

+1 this is great.

IHateTheGMAT · Answer

Great job putting this together! +1 (more if i could)

isa · Answer

Awesome GoBruins +1 PS I can't believe you actually made a spreadsheet! :wink:

IHateTheGMAT · Answer

For anyone too lazy to open the spreadsheet I just calculated the average and median percentage of MBAs that were unemployed at graduation during 2003, the worst hiring year during the last recession (using GoBruins data on the top 16 programs):

Average % of MBAs with no job at graduation among UE/E schools: 30%
Median % of MBAs with no job at graduation among UE/E schools: 29%

Yup, it was that bad. Anyone think this recession is less severe then the last one? Me neither. I definitely suggest everyone take a look at the work that GoBruins did. Look at the schools you got into, which one fared the best? which was the worst? That may help guide your decisions when choosing amongst schools.

ncp · Answer

Bear in mind that not all schools start at the same time. So, the % employed at graduation, generally reported based on stats in March/April of graduation year, can be sonewhat misleading. Anderson, for instance, does not begin school until October and their students graduate much later in the year compared to people from other peer schools. Strictly going by the excel, it seems as if Anderson has inferior recruiting. But having talked to students and pondered whether I should go to Anderson for my own MBA, I know that the late start date hurts them while reporting employment numbers.

GoBruin · Answer

Ask and you shall recieve. tada!

FN · Answer

nice work!...

interesting how MIT has fared so much better, i guess those technical background types fare better..

riverripper · Answer

Adding 3 months after grad probably will give an even better idea of how things will shape up. Lots of top schools still were placing 90% of their people within 3 months.

falibay · Answer

Do we data on 3 months and 6 months after?

I don't know about you , but I graduated from grad school (Ivy) in 2003 which was not a great year. My friends and I struggled to find something but we all had one offer within 2 months of graduation. But we only had one, no choice or leverage.

i doubt the unemployment rate look that bad after 3/6 months.

falibay · Answer

Looking more closely at the data, is it normal that HBS has a 0% unemployment in 2005??

2004 and 2005 were good years, I assume that anyone wanting a job from a M7 school would be able to get one. I assume that 10-15% account for people who are not sure what they want to do or are waiting for the right opportunity. My point is that it is probably difficult to compare each years.

nomsg7111 · Answer

Its interesting that Stanford, Haas, and UCLA are all pretty high unemployment (relatively) in 2002, 2003, and 2004. I think unemployment is also related to geographic preference of students. Dot com bust more severely effected students living close to tech centers.

For instance comparing Stanford to Harvard, Berkeley to Sloan, UCLA to Ross (very rough estimation of peer schools)...

I am wondering if we will see a reverse effect in this recession. Schools close to financial centers (NYU, Columbia, Wharton, etc) being more severely effected by this downturn.

Anyways, very good information and makes me think whether or not full-time makes financial sense.

Rubashov1 · Answer

Kudos as promised GB. Thanks for putting it together.

agold · Answer

Very good point. When you look at employment numbers 3 months after graduation, they may very well be "second choice" jobs just to put food on the table, and maybe even people returning to their pre-MBA employers. I doubt that people are going to be getting offers from McKinsey or Goldman after graduation.

The cold numbers don't do justice to the quality of jobs/offers that are handed out. If you only look at salary data, that is also not enough in my opinion as most post-MBA positions pay in roughly the same ballpark.

AlexMBAApply · Answer

Here's another way schools fudge the numbers.

The "employed" number will usually include those who have offers, but who have been deferred (lots of consulting firms did that where they would "defer" you for 6 months, then when 6 months is up, "defer" you for another 6 months so that it's not real job offer). Moreover, it doesn't account for the fact that a good chunk would get laid off within 1 year of joining. It wasn't uncommon to have a dept/group give you an offer, only for that group to dissolve by the time you were supposed to start.

The job market between 2001-04 saw a LOT of turnover -- for those of you who worked then I don't have to tell you that. People switching jobs as much as a few times a year.

It was a pretty stressful time for a lot of my peers back then. People who were unemployed for more than 18 months; others who were laid off multiple times.

Take the employment numbers published by schools with a HUGE grain of salt -- remember that these *marketing* and *promotional* documents, not audited statements. To be honest, the numbers really don't tell the real story.

The flipside of that "unemployed" number is that there are folks who are picky and unwilling to compromise for any job and could afford to stay unemployed in order to find the *right* job. For example, I had a classmate who was really wanted to work in a specific area of sports mgmt - and stuck it out for around 18 months until the right job was found - and that effort paid off. Or the folks who wanted to do private equity or VC or something else that doesn't involve traditional recruiting - and who needed extra time beyond graduation to find it. So that "% unemployed" doesn't really tell you a whole lot, because some are willingly unemployed (looking for the right opportunity), and some are unwillingly employed (those who were looking for traditional MBA jobs and couldn't get it). Also, as agold said, a good number of the "employed" may not be "happily employed at a job they really wanted".

While it's admirable to analyze the numbers, if the data isn't reliable or consistent it's not really going to yield the insight you were hoping for.

In short, if you're adamant about needing a job right after graduation, you should be able to land a job offer during school so long as you're willing to be very open-minded and realistic about what you can get. The pickier you are, the harder it will be. As to how picky you want to be, that's a personal decision.

GoBruin · Answer

There were a couple data points I couldn't get. HBS 2001/ HBS 2005 and couple others.

Jerz · Answer

Very interesting - thanks for pulling this together GoBruins. +1

yellowjacket · Answer

Great job GoBruins. This is definitely interesting. Kudos!

graffiti · Answer

Great work GoBruins. Very interesting one. I wonder which of those five years we are in currently. Any one ?

GoBruin · Answer

I would say the 2001. Seems like all the schools still are able to place all their students and it's so far only one sector. Much like tech boom affected Haas and Anderson first. Anyone else?

Unemployment During a Recession

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards