A recent study heralds good news for Georgetown students: College graduates are going to be a hot commodity in the U.S. economy through 2018.

A Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce study, “Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018,” published by Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith and Jeff Strohl, predicts that the United States will be short 300,000 workers with associate’s, bachelor’s degrees or better by 2018.

Georgetown’s Career Center took the report on employment options in stride, sticking to its philosophy on the importance of the individual job search.

“Despite these encouraging employment numbers for candidates with college degrees, I still think that each student must take an individualized approach to their career when choosing between employment or graduate school after graduation,” Mike Schaub, executive director of the Georgetown Career Education Center said.

With a shortage of workers, why does the unemployment rate – currently at 9.6 percent according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics – remain high? According to the report, the modernization of jobs once dependent on workers is behind the statistic.

“Hundreds of thousands of low-skill jobs in manufacturing, farming, fishing and forestry have been permanently destroyed because the recession has further prompted employers to either automate those positions or ship them offshore to take advantage of cheap labor,” the report said.

As the U.S. economy continues to move away from manufacturing and agriculture, about 63 percent of all jobs will require secondary education by 2018. This presents a clear advantage for current college students, but leaves few options for those without a post-secondary education. “High school graduates and dropouts will find themselves largely left behind: unemployed, underemployed or likely stuck in jobs that don’t provide middle-class wages in the coming decade,” said Smith, co-author of the report.

Despite favorable projections, students are not celebrating their competitive edge just yet.

“While there are certainly more jobs than in years past, unemployment is still high and the market is still quite competitive,” Caitlin Maguire (COL ’11) said. But moving into the coming decade, the report, which also predicts trends in job growth by industry, stresses not simply the pursuit of a post-secondary education, but the hunt for training in high-demand jobs.

“It is probably smart to think of preparing for occupations that are forecast to have high growth potential,” Smith said. “Broadly defined, they include health care professional and technical occupations, education occupations, science technology, engineering and mathematical occupations and community services and the arts occupations.”

And Georgetown students see the potential in this.

“More jobs won’t hurt,” said Michael Lonie (COL ’11), who has considered a variety of options after graduation including Teach for America, working right away and graduate school. “I think [the need for college graduates in the job market] will take the pressure off a lot of college students who are looking right now.”

Regardless of the industry chosen by today’s college student, there will still not be enough college-educated workers to meet the demand of the U.S. economy over the next decade. According to the report, U.S. colleges would need to increase the number of degrees they administer by 10 percent each year in order to keep up with demand. Meeting this demand, at least in part, the report insists, “is not a challenge we can afford to ignore.