In Some Bay Area Counties, College Grads Have Higher Unemployment

Higher education is supposed to be the ticket to employment. But in some Bay Area counties, workers with a high school diploma have lower unemployment rates than those with bachelor's degrees or higher.

From a report: Experts suggested the Bay Area's backwards numbers, which run counter to the national trend, could be the result of too-few lower-wage workers, many of whom have been driven out by skyrocketing housing prices and the rising cost of living. 'We have employers call us all the time (saying), 'I'm looking for low-wage, entry-level workers,'' said Kris Stadelman, director of NOVA Workforce Development in Sunnyvale. But there are few workers willing to take on those positions who don't already have jobs, she said.

In Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate for workers with a high school degree is 3.3 percent, compared to a 3.6 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 American Community Survey, which measures unemployment by educational attainment for workers between 25 and 64 years old. The same situation exists in two other Bay Area counties -- Marin and Sonoma -- where workers with at least a bachelor's degree don't have the lowest unemployment rate.

The trend is starkest in Sonoma County, where workers without a high school degree have a 0.2 percent unemployment rate compared to a 4.4 percent rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. Workers with a high school diploma in that county have an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent. Statewide, workers with a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent, nearly double the 3.5 percent rate of those with a bachelor's or higher.

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