2007–08 bachelor’s degree holders and employment

Four years after completing their 2007–08 bachelor’s degrees, 83 percent of graduates who were not enrolled were employed. Of these, about 85 percent worked in one full-time job, 8 percent worked in one part-time job, and 8 percent had multiple jobs.

This report presents findings from the 2008/12 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:08/12), a nationally representative longitudinal sample survey of students who completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree during the 2007–08 academic year.

Other findings from B&B:08/12 include the following:

•    On average, 2007–08 graduates who had never enrolled in additional postsecondary degree programs after earning their bachelor’s degree had held two jobs in the 4 years since graduation. Thirty-nine and 34 percent had held one or two jobs, respectively. Sixteen percent had held three jobs, and the remaining 11 percent had held four or more jobs.

•    On average, graduates who had not enrolled after earning their bachelor’s degree were employed for about 84 percent of the months that elapsed between their graduation in 2007–08 and the second follow-up study in 2012. Some 6 percent of the time between graduation and the second follow-up study, on average, was spent unemployed, and the remaining 10 percent was spent out of the labor force.

•    Bachelor’s degree recipients who had been employed in their current job for more than 3 months at the time of the second follow-up and were not enrolled, worked an average of 41 hours per week in that job.