Kaitlyn Hughes| features editor

College students entering the job market have not seen higher unemployment rates and increases in company layoffs as an issue despite statistics.

In the past four years the country has seen 448,366 layoffs, according to Layoffs.fyi. The unemployment rate is currently 4.2% which is .4% higher than the previous year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Layoffs are normal

Associate Professor of Management Akwasi Opoku-Dawkwa said that layoffs can provide opportunity.

“Layoffs are a normal part of economic growth,” he said.

Opoku-Dawkwa said that sometimes you need less people in a specific industry and they are better suited somewhere else.

He provided the example of taxi and Uber, two transportation services. Opuku-Dawkwa said that although taxi drivers are losing their jobs, Uber is able to provide them with employment.

Due to the unpredictableness of job stability, the university does not prepare students for potential job loss.

“Our focus is getting them employed,” Opoku-Dawkwa said.
Layoffs are not the problem

Paris Wright, an employment center manager at Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., said that he has seen more people leave their jobs than be laid off from them.

Wright said that employees will move on from their jobs if they are feeling mistreated by management or do not have overall workplace satisfaction

“People are leaving the work that they are doing due to genuine unhappiness,” Wright said.

Rick Swartz, executive director of Bloomfield-Garfield Corp., said that younger people have a higher standard for workplace satisfaction.

“Whether they are millennials or Generation Z, [they] have a low threshold for the kind of treatment in their workplace that might have been acceptable 25 or 30 years ago,” Swartz said.

Wright said that there is also an overabundance of applicants in certain industries, making it harder for some to obtain a job.

“There is work and positions to be filled, but the market to fill those positions is ridiculously oversaturated,” Wright said.

Swartz said this is because more people will flock to the higher paying jobs because of the increased cost of living.

Breaking into the field despite stereotypes

Nolan Sulpizio graduated from Duquesne’s Palumbo-Donahue School of Business this past spring.

Despite the current state of the job market, he was able to come out of college with a job offer at Wesco, a Fortune 500 company.

This is a position he had secured his junior year of college.

Sulpizio said sometimes his superiors underestimate his abilities based on his age.

“Some people don’t give us enough credit,” he said. “They think we are a little more immature than we are or dumber than we are.”

Despite these allegations, he has been able to rise above this and prove himself capable.

Mitchell Brown is a senior at Duquesne who will be graduating from the school of business in the spring.

Although older generations view Gen Z as less driven, Brown feels this gives students the opportunity to rise above expectations.

“It makes it much easier to succeed in life,” Brown said.

Effects of layoffs

Although Opoku-Dawkwa said that layoffs are normal, he said there are negative effects for both the people laid off and the company that had to do it.

He said people who are laid off face hardships with lost income, which takes a toll on their emotions and identity. Especially if there are no organizations within the community to support them through this process.

Companies also face complications when it comes to lay offs, he said. The employees that have not been laid off become uneasy thinking they will be next, and if a company lays off too many people they have to spend money on rehiring.

Opoku-Dawkwa said the positive effects of layoffs can take the form of a company being more financially sustainable for their employees. Also, the laid off may begin to start thinking outside the box by starting their own business or taking a different path.

He said that there is an ethical way to lay people off.

“I have a very specific definition of ethics,” Opoku-Dawkwa said, “which is minimizing avoidable harms.”

He said companies can avoid harming laid off employees by providing them a severance package and providing them with ample notice before their last day.

How to break into the field

Sulpizio said he did a tremendous amount of networking that got him to where he was today.

“Get as many experiences. Never say no,” Sulpizio said. “Be open to new opportunities and insane doors will open up to you.”

He said that to secure a job people need to put themselves out there.

Wright said the process to find a job takes dedication.

“Be prepared to fight and fail. Be prepared to advocate for yourself. Be prepared to trudge through beyond page five of Indeed search results,” he said. “Getting a full-time job is now a full-time job.”