New college graduates are almost always bursting with optimism, often unfounded, about the workplace they are about to enter and what is going to be their role in it.

        Graduates have the world at their feet and believe that opportunity is on a single-gauge track that runs right past their door.

        A recent survey by www.jobtrak.com, a national leader in the resume and job listing niche of the Web, found that this year, despite much speculation that a recession is upon the nation, college graduates have not decided that their career glass is half-empty.

        They have backpacks bristling with job offers.

        About 30 percent of the 1,000 college students surveyed by the division of monster.com expect to have four or more offers by the time they graduate this spring.

        In all, about 77 percent expect to have between one and three job offers.

        “The demand for new hires continues to outpace the supply of new graduates,” said Ken Ramberg, president of jobtrak.com.

        “This is the result of the baby-boom generation reaching retirement age at a time when the supply of new students will remain relatively flat.

        “Students continue to be in the fortunate position of deciding which job is best for them, rather than worrying about if a job will be available,” he said.

Number of jobs growing

               Officials found that 1,000 people voted in the survey posted on the home page of www.jobtrak.com in one week early this month.

        The company knows no fewer than 1,000 people voted because the site is password-protected so people can only vote once.

        Although the economy has slowed dramatically in recent months, there is no doubt it's still creating new jobs by the tens of thousands.

        Data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the traditionally slow month of February brought an increase in the number of new workers in the United States of 135,000 people for a total of 132.2 million workers.

        That's a record for the economy, the Employment Policy Foundation concluded. In fact, each of the last six months has brought a new record.

        Total payroll employment in February 2001 was 1.8 million higher than February 2000 and 24.2 million more than nearly a decade before in February 1992.

        Ed Potter, president of the foundation, a nonprofit think tank funded largely through corporate contributions, said he has personal and professional reasons to believe that college graduates will continue to have more job offers than they can handle.

Four offers not uncommon

        His son, who will graduate this spring with a degree in applied mathematics and economics, has plenty of job offers coming his way.

        “Based on his experience, four job offers is not all that uncommon,” he said.

        “There is such an overall skill shortage in this country that while the labor market may dry up a little in other vocational areas, when it comes to people with college degrees, there are a lot of opportunities.”

        Mr. Potter said research from the foundation through 2008 projects that 80 percent of the fields with a worker shortage require individuals with college degrees.

        “There has been such a high percentage of available jobs having those skill requirements that even with a decline in demand there will still be plenty of job opportunity for the newly minted college graduate,” Mr. Potter said.

        E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/eckberg.

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