Congratulations graduates, welcome to unemployment.

It is graduation time. It has been graduation time for the past month. Just as college graduation ended, high school graduation began. Local shops advertise congratulations to high school graduates. People at the coffee shop talk about their kids preschool graduations. Elementary aged kids tromp around the neighborhood with a new sense of accomplishment mirrored with summer freedom. Newspapers announce scholarship accolades and write articles called: Advice for grads. While classified ads lack the dedication.

31,055 Bachelors degrees were conferred during 2008-2009 in North Carolina alone. The unemployment rate in NC soared to a whopping 10.8 % during April, a percentage higher than the national unemployment rate (Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm). Realistically, for new graduates the unemployment rate is estimated to be around 15%, putting approximately 4,600 hopeful North Carolina graduates jobless. This group consists of mostly twenty-something year olds or what has been termed by the general public as "young adults". These young adults are increasingly relying on their parents for support as the economy continues to decline. The age range of young adults and adults in transition between school and permanent full time employment is widening. This again can be contributed to the recession. So what are these twenty-something year olds doing?

About 2/3 are living in debt from student loans averaging $23,200 (Project on Student Debt). If you are in debt, find out how much you owe and figure out a way to manage it before it grows to be too big to handle. Check out: http://www.nslds.ed.gov/.

Others, are living with their parents and working in restaurant and other service oriented temporary jobs, like me. We are still looking for alternatives.

It's nice to read during such a tough time that people are still graduating, people are still getting degrees and people are still looking to the future.

But I won't lie, the echo of graduation haunts me.