Human Skills and the Labor Market Outcomes of Liberal Arts Grads

Emsi and Strada are proud to announce the Nov. 13^th release of “Robot-Ready: Human+ Skills for the Future of Work.” The result of a year-long project, this report delves into the labor market outcomes for liberal arts graduates and analyzes key skills they bring to employers. To learn more, join us on Nov. 13^th for an introductory webinar hosted by Inside Higher Ed.  

Liberal Arts + STEM

With the dramatic rise in college tuition, student and parents are concerned about getting a good return on their investment. As a result, students flock to career-oriented majors like business, healthcare, and engineering, while liberal arts programs languish.

Why?

The overwhelming opinion is that liberal arts degrees are irrelevant to the labor market. After all, how many tech companies would hire liberal arts graduates when they could hire STEM graduates?

A lot, it turns out. Last year, Google’s Project Aristotle showed that the best teams at the company exhibited a wide range of soft skills commonly associated with the liberal arts. According to venture capitalist and author Scott Hartley, liberal arts graduates now make up a larger percentage of today’s tech workforce than technical graduates do. And contrary to popular belief, liberal arts graduates do find gainful employment and make solid money.

So how can we combine the uniquely “human” skills of the liberal arts with the technical skills of STEM? How can we make sure we’re properly training students for the future of work? And what does the future of work look like?

We dig into that and more in our latest report: “Robot-Ready: Human+ Skills for the Future of Work.”

Emsi conducted this research in partnership with the Strada Institute for the Future of Work. For the past year, we’ve pored through our database of over 100 million resumes and social profiles to better understand what people do with liberal arts degrees.

In Robot-Ready, You Will Learn More About:

1. The demand for human skills. Leadership, communication, problem solving, and other human skills are among the most in-demand skills in the labor market. With many job tasks at risk of automation, employers are looking for people with adaptable skills. As this Quartz article put it, “those in STEM fields may be studying how to create these technologies—but people in liberal arts fields are learning about how to live with them.” That’s critical, too.

2. What liberal arts grads do after graduation. Liberal arts students aren’t doomed to low-skill careers. Over the course of their working life, our data indicates that they transition into high-skill, high-demand jobs. The first job does not define their trajectory.

3. How human+ skills are being put to work today. Human skills help liberal arts grads thrive in many career areas. This was apparent in our data, where we saw liberal arts grads frequently changing careers from their first job to their second job.

4. What liberal arts grads actually earn. On average, they earn $20,000 more than the average high school grad. And the top 25% earn $90,000 or more per year.

For more information, sign up for our webinar next week with Inside Higher Ed. To reserve your copy of Robot-Ready, fill out the form below, and we’ll send it to you on Nov. 13^th.

Meredith Metsker is a data journalist at Emsi. She can be reached at [email protected].

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