College majors with the lowest unemployment rates: report

A specialization in nutrition, art history or philosophy could prepare you for more job success than specializing in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) field such as chemistry or physics.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York followed the unemployment rate of recent university graduates from 22 to 27 years old and found that he reached 5.5% in FebruaryAbove the rate of 2.6% known by graduates of colleges of all ages.

The bank published data This month showing that some college majors were more affected by unemployment than others. According to the bank, college majors with the lowest unemployment rates for the calendar year 2023 were the nutrition sciences, construction services and animal / plant sciences. Each of these majors had unemployment rates of 1% or less among colleges graduates from 22 to 27 years old.

The history of art had an unemployment rate of 3% and a philosophy of 3.2%, each below the national national unemployment rate at the national level of 4.2% in April.

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Meanwhile, college majors in computer science, chemistry and physics had much higher unemployment rates of 6% or more third cycle. IT and computer engineering students had unemployment rates of 6.1% and 7.5%, respectively.

However, these fields were among the most offset. Computer engineering and IT had annual median profits at the start of a career of $ 80,000, one of the highest in all disciplines. In comparison, the majors in art history have gained $ 45,000 a year while the majors in philosophy have gained $ 48,000 and the major $ 75,000 majors. The three fields had higher wages than Median personal income In the United States in 2023, $ 42,220.

More than 32% of computer graduates have obtained master’s degrees or more, compared to 48% of students in art history and nutrition, and 58% of majors in philosophy.

Most students who specialize in chemistry or physics also obtained graduate diplomas. Almost 68% of physics and 66% of college chemistry students decided to continue and receive higher diplomas. Physics graduates were among the most paid, with annual median profits of $ 70,000. Chemistry has lagged behind with a median annual salary of $ 55,000.

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Companies are increasing their recruitment of majors in the humanities to obtain various prospects. Last year, the chief of the BlackRock operation, Robert Goldstein, spoken at a conference Regarding the need of the investment company for majors in the humanities, even if the company focuses on finance and technology.

“We have more and more conviction that we need people who specialize in history or English, in things that have nothing to do with finance or technology,” said Goldstein. “It is this diversity of thought and diversity of people and the diversity of looking at different ways to solve problems, which really feed innovation.”

According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, history and English majors have each made around $ 45,000 in median annual profits, with an unemployment rate of approximately 4.6%.

Goldman Sachs Information Director Marco Argenti also noted last year that a standard engineering diploma could no longer be enough, especially since AI learns to write high quality code. Argenti suggested that it may be necessary to associate a computer diploma With an additional diploma in philosophy.

In April, the CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella declared that company engineers use AI to write from 20% to 30% of the code, while the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai said During a profits call That Google used AI to write “much over 30%” of the new code.

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