The March unemployment numbers were released Friday morning and the U.S. economy gained far fewer jobs than expected. Employers created a net gain of only 88,000 jobs last month, which is below the 190,000 average economists had expected.
The tight job market is especially painful for young people just graduating from college. "They are not getting those first jobs where you get specific skills and become more valuable over time," professor Peter Morici of Smith School of Business explained on Friday's show. "Among the younger people, what we are doing is creating a debtors' prison. They can't get rid of the debt they’re taking on because the way they're dealing with high unemployment is to go back to school and borrow money to live. It’s a terrible system."
Morici's advice? "The economy is creating good jobs for high school graduates and college graduates if you have specific job skills. If you’re an engineer, you’re a nurse, you’re an accountant, you’re a chef"--then you will likely find employment after graduation. However, "the big problem is everyone wants their child to go to a liberal institution like Williams College and study sociology and go to law school," Morici said. "Well, guess what the biggest surplus we have right now is: lawyers."