By Max Douge

As we celebrate grads this month, it’s an appropriate time to consider high school graduates as a potential talent pool for your organization, particularly for entry-level positions.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics provided an economic report in April 2021 called College Enrollment and Work Activity of Recent High School and College Graduates Summary. This insightful report explored what 2020 high school and college graduates opted to do after graduation.

While I’m not going to make the report the focus of this blog post, there was a particular section that caught my attention:

“The unemployment rate for youth ages 16 to 24 not enrolled in school, at 11.3 percent in October 2020, increased from the previous year. Among not-enrolled youth who did not have a high school diploma, unemployment rates in October 2020 were 10.2 percent for young men and 11.2 percent for young women. The jobless rates of young men and young women with at least a bachelor's degree were 8.6 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.”

(The report pointed out that COVID-19 influenced these numbers from the previous year. )

I was curious to know what numbers might look like here in Frederick, MD. While I wasn’t able to find the number of 2021 graduates from Frederick, MD high schools, I did find that for the 2021-22 academic year, it is expected that there will be 13,984 high school students.

For this exercise, I’m going to apply some very rudimentary logic to see what kind of numbers we can calculate. I’m going to assume a basic 25% of the 13,984 are seniors (3,496), and I’m going to randomly assume that 80% of those seniors (2,797) will go to college, leaving 699 students who are likely going into the workforce upon graduating in May 2022. Since I’m making a lot of assumptions, I’m going to take a conservative approach and reduce that number to 500 to account for calculations where I may be way off.

Since 11.3% of those students may be unemployed, that leaves us with 444 graduating high school seniors, or 3% of Frederick County’s 2022 high school students, who will likely be in the workforce in late 2022.

“If you’re an employer in Frederick, MD with entry-level job openings, are you preparing to attract any of these individuals? Have you developed career paths with livable wages that may entice some of them to work for your organization? Are you willing to provide training and commit to developing their skills for your organization and/or industry?”

How is all of this relevant to YOUR business or industry?

Each year, it seems job demand is strong for nurses and other healthcare workers, CDL drivers, manufacturing workers, trade workers (HVAC, plumbers, electricians, etc.), and many other entry-level positions. If you’re an employer in Frederick, MD with entry-level job openings, are you preparing to attract any of these 444 individuals? Have you developed career paths with livable wages that may entice some of them to work for your organization? Are you willing to provide training and commit to developing their skills for your organization and/or industry?

Right now, many businesses with entry-level openings are struggling to fill their openings, primarily due to the pandemic. With more people getting vaccinated, our local and state governments are working hard to provide guidance for all businesses to fully engage with customers and clients once again. These recent graduates can potentially fill an important role for your openings.

Here are a few more reasons to consider recruiting high school graduates:

They are technically savvy
They are quick learners
They can be trained for the immediate and/or future needs of a business or industry
They are eager to show what they can do
They haven’t yet formed a negative opinion about the workforce
They are not yet in a position to demand more compensation than more experienced workers

If you would like help connecting with recent high school graduates or more insight about how to integrate them into your workforce, contact Frederick County Workforces Services at 301.600.2255 or click here.

High School Graduates: Making the Case