Employers are looking for employees that fit their needs. It is fair to say that generally they hope to hire “the best” job candidate available given the application pool or talent pool. Particularly for professional employment educational attainment matters tremendously. Of course educational attainment (or hard skills) is not the only criterion. Soft skills matter (e.g., communication ability, interpersonal skills) to employers as well. Let’s look at 2024 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) regarding educational attainment of the U.S. Labor Force for persons 25 and over by race and ethnicity:
68% of Asian Americans in the workforce have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more
74% of Asian Americans in the workforce have attained an Associate degree or more.
44% of Whites in the workforce have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more.
55% of Whites in the workforce have attained an Associate degree or more.
36% of Blacks or African Americans have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more.
48% of Blacks or African Americans have attained an Associate degree or more.
Most of the people employed in the two highest-paid occupational groups have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more. In 2024 according to BLS, 76.5% of those employed in Professional Specialty and Related occupations had attained a Bachelor’s degree or more. In Management occupations, Finance and Business, 64% of those employed have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more. More evidence of why college degrees matter more than ever. Other data includes a recent publication from AFL-CIO. Title “AFL-CIO Professional and Technical Workforce: By the Numbers Fact Sheet” of 2024. In that publication estimates that 57.8 percent of the U.S. workforce or 93 million workers are professional workers. This includes workers in Management, Finance and Business, Professional Specialty and Related but also professional workers in many other occupational groups. The AFL-CIO identifies workers in any occupational group as professionals if they have attained at least an academic associate degree or more.