Latest news with #collegegraduates
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
This is the worst jobs market in years for college grads
The Class of 2025 faces a daunting assignment: getting hired in today's no-hire, no-fire jobs market. Overall, the US job market remains resilient. The national unemployment rate stands at just 4.2% and the economy has added jobs 52 months in a row – the second longest streak of uninterrupted job growth in US history. Yet there are some cautionary signs beneath the hood. Business decision-making has been paralyzed by the chaotic trade war. Entry-level hiring is down. And some leaders of the artificial intelligence industry say that the fast-moving technology could wipe out white-collar jobs, if it's not already starting to do that. But even as the overall labor market looks relatively healthy, economists say this is the worst market for new college graduates since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recent grads are finding that it takes considerable timeto get hired, leaving them unemployed and saddled with student debt for a frustratingly long time. For the first time since record-keeping on the topic began in 1980, the unemployment rate for recent graduates (those 22 to 27 years old with a bachelor's degree or higher) is consistently higher than the national unemployment rate, according to Oxford Economics. 'It's a very difficult jobs market for college graduates, and it will take time to work out of this,' said Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics. Since mid-2023, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates has climbed by 1.6 percentage points – triple the national increase, according to Oxford Economics. The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 24 is nearly twice as high as the national average at 8.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This picture is more concerning for young men, who grapple with an unemployment rate of 9.6% compared to 6.7% a year ago. After scrambling in 2021 and 2022 to hire workers, businesses are taking a much more cautious approach today as they navigate the murky trade war and grapple with high interest rates. The number of people collecting unemployment checks climbed in mid-May to a fresh four-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's a signal it's taking longer for people hunting for work to find a job. Entry-level hiring is down 23% compared to March 2020, exceeding the 18% decline in overall hiring over the same period, according to professional networking platform LinkedIn. ''No hire/no fire' is a difficult state of play for workers looking for a new job, but it is supportive of lower inflation, higher productivity and persistent economic growth in the long-run,' Thomas Simons, chief US economist at Jefferies. 'Looking back on it, it was definitely traumatic. It started to weigh heavily on me,' Macksoud told CNN in a phone interview. 'It felt hopeless.' The lengthy job search often takes a toll on new graduates. Worker confidence among Gen Zers in the United States recently tumbled to record lows, even lower than at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to LinkedIn. For Macksoud, the pressure was only amplified by the fact that, like many college graduates, she had a pile of student debt totaling about $70,000. After running into a dead end with government and NGO-based jobs, she eventually widened her search and landed a job working in business development for an IT and cybersecurity company. Macksoud urged today's graduates not to get disheartened by rejection. 'It's a numbers game. You have to change the mindset from being discouraged that you're not getting anywhere, to attacking it and being persistent,' she said. Finding a job could be even harder with the lightning-fast advancements made by next-generation AI models. Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI giant Anthropic, warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs and lift unemployment to 10% to 20% within the next one to five years. Amodei told CNN's Anderson Cooper last week that it's 'eerie' how much the public and lawmakers are unaware of what's happening with AI advancements in the workforce. 'We have to act now. We can't just sleepwalk into it,' the Anthropic CEO said. This entry-level job destruction may already be happening, at least in some corners of the labor market. For instance, Oxford Economics notes that employment in computer science and mathematics – two industries that are particularly vulnerable to AI disruption – has declined by 8% since 2022 for those aged 22 to 27. By contrast, the employment rate for those older than 27 in these industries has not changed much. 'AI is definitely displacing some of these lower-level jobs,' said Martin, the Oxford Economics economist. He added that he expects that AI will both kill and create some jobs, especially in the tech sector. Others argue that the AI employment fears are overdone. 'We don't see any evidence that this (slow hiring for entry-level jobs) is being driven by AI,' Kory Kantenga, head of economics at LinkedIn, told CNN in a phone interview. Kantenga noted that there have been dire predictions about technology killing jobs. 'When ATMs were introduced, there was a fear that bank tellers would be completely wiped out. But the reality is they evolved and adapted,' he said. The challenging jobs market for college graduates comes amid a broader debate over the value of a college degree, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and leave students saddled with overwhelming debt. The unemployment rate for young workers (ages 22 to 27) with a bachelor's degree or more is lower than it is for those without one, though that gap has narrowed in recent years, according to federal data. Kantenga said that while the cost of a four-year degree has gone up, many Americans decide it's still worth it because the earnings potential is higher and the unemployment rate is lower. 'At the end of the day, the rewards of having a degree still dwarf the costs,' he said. Economists say the challenging jobs market, and the risks around AI, put the onus on college students to choose where they focus wisely – for example, faster-growing parts of the workforce such as healthcare and education. 'Know where the momentum is and think about not just your first job, but your next step,' Kantenga said. 'If you land a high-paying first job, that's great, but not if you've got nowhere to go afterwards.' The challenging jobs market is weighing on parents, too. 'It's very frustrating,' said Rob Bastress, whose son graduated from University of California Irvine in December 2023 but has since struggled to find a job. 'You're pressuring your kids to get good grades, get into a good school to set them up for the right opportunities when they get out. And now those opportunities have kind of vanished.' Bastress, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works in tech, believes AI is part of the problem. 'I do think some jobs have been eliminated because of the automation that AI can do. And it's going to get tougher,' Bastress said, noting that some newer AI models won't even require human prompting to do tasks and make decisions. Gabriel Nash, a 24-year-old from Orlando, Florida, said he's applied to about 450 jobs in communications and video editing since graduating from the University of Central Florida in May 2024. None of those applications have panned out. Nash works part-time as a content creator by making gaming videos on YouTube. That work has given him enough money to pay for car insurance and other expenses, but not enough to move out from his parents' home. 'It's stressful,' Nash said. 'There is this social pressure of needing to get out and get a job. But if nobody is hiring, what am I supposed to do?'
CBS News
7 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Rising number of college grads are unemployed, new research shows
Recent college graduates are having a harder time finding work, despite their higher education degrees, which usually give job-seekers a leg up in the labor market. That's according to a new report from Oxford Economics which shows that unemployed recent college grads account for 12% of an 85% rise in the national unemployment rate since mid-2023. That's a high number, given that this cohort only makes up 5% of the total labor force. What's more, the rate of unemployment among workers, ages 22 and 27, who have recently graduated from college, is nearing 6% —which is above the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. "People who have obtained a bachelor's degree or higher have a higher unemployment rate than national average, and this is the first time this has happened in the last 45 years of data," Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told CBS MoneyWatch. That's noteworthy, he said, because "those with higher educational attainment usually have better prospects overall than their peer with less." So why are recent college grads are having a tougher time finding work post-college than previous graduating classes did? While the report points to a couple of factors, it finds that much of the rising rate is being driven by industries where employers are slowing hiring. "The rise in the recent graduate unemployment rate is largely part of a mismatch between an oversupply of recent graduates in fields where business demand has waned," according to the report. That holds especially true in the tech industry, as more college students graduate with degrees in computer science and related fields than any other major. "Prospects for employment will remain minimal for these individuals, keeping the unemployment rate elevated in the near term," Oxford Economics researchers wrote in the report. Tech sector-centric Computer science is among the fastest-growing fields of study among undergrads, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but jobs in the sector are particularly vulnerable to replacement by automation. Recent advances in artificial intelligence also expose workers in the field to being rendered obsolete. "There's a mismatch between business demand and the labor supply overall," Martin said. "And it's very concentrated in the technology sector." The industry hired at a fast clip when the economy reopened post-pandemic, before pulling back. Those cuts are likely still affecting the current unemployment rate, according to Martin. "Some of it could be a normalization after the tech sector's hiring surge at the end of the pandemic around 2021," he said. "But there's also evidence that AI is starting to impact lower-level computer science gigs," he added. Experienced workers who graduated with computer science degrees but have racked up more than a few years of experience are faring fine, noted Martin. It's those who do the kind of lower-level, rote work that AI is already adept at, who are seeing a mismatch between the number of jobs available and the supply of workers seeking them. "Some of it might be businesses being productive with the workers they have and not wanting to increase costs overall by hiring. It could also be higher adoption rates of AI," Martin said. "At the moment, it looks to be a bit of both." Uncertainty slows hiring Economic uncertainty, driven largely by President Trump's aggressive, yet ever-changing tariff agenda, is also leading a number of businesses to press pause on growth and investment. Because of this, the unemployment rate among recent college graduates could continue to inch upward, according to Martin. "We are heading into a period where uncertainty is really high; the impact of tariffs is starting to bleed through, and businesses are facing higher input costs," he said. Although recent college graduates who have secured employment aren't being laid off at higher rates than the rest of the workforce, Martin doesn't expect things to get easier for young graduates on the hunt for employment, absent a surge in hiring by tech companies or mass exodus of workers from the labor force. "There is some softening in demand overall, but a lot of it is concentrated at the moment in recent college graduates, and we are looking for the unemployment rate to rise," he said. The "underemployment" effect When qualified workers with college degrees try and fail to find work in their desired field, they tend to continue seeking work, sometimes looking for a job in another sector, as opposed to withdrawing from the labor force, the report notes. That can lead t college-educated workers finding themselves "underemployed," or in roles where 50% of the workers who occupy them do not have a bachelor's degree or higher. This scenario can doom them for years to come: Underemployed workers tend to remain so for the rest of their careers, according to a report.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI is ‘breaking' entry-level jobs that Gen Z workers need to launch careers, LinkedIn exec warns
LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, said artificial intelligence is increasingly threatening the types of jobs that historically have served as stepping stones for young workers who are just beginning their careers. He likened the disruption to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s. As millions of students get ready to graduate this spring, their prospects for landing that first job that helps launch their careers is looking dimmer. In addition to an economy that's slowing amid tariff-induced uncertainty, artificial intelligence is threatening entry-level work that traditionally has served as stepping stones, according to LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, who likened the shift to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s. 'Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption,' he wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed. 'Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder.' For example, AI tools are doing the types of simple coding and debugging tasks that junior software developers did to gain experience. AI is also doing work that young employees in the legal and retail sectors once did. And Wall Street firms are reportedly considering steep cuts to entry-level hiring. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for college graduates has been rising faster than for other workers in past few years, Raman pointed out, though there isn't definitive evidence yet that AI is the cause of the weak job market. To be sure, businesses aren't doing away with entry-level work altogether, as executives still seek fresh ideas from young workers, he added. AI has also freed up some junior employees to take on more advanced work earlier in their careers. But changes rippling through certain sectors today are likely heading for others in the future, with office jobs due to feel the biggest impact, Raman predicted. 'While the technology sector is feeling the first waves of change, reflecting A.I.'s mass adoption in this field, the erosion of traditional entry-level tasks is expected to play out in fields like finance, travel, food and professional services, too,' he said. To fix entry-level work, Raman called for colleges to incorporate AI across their curricula and for companies to give junior roles higher-level tasks. There are some signs that companies are adapting to the new AI landscape. CEO Timothy Young told Fortune's Diane Brady recently that 'the commoditization of intelligence' means hiring the smartest people is less important than developing staff to have management skills. 'There is a lot of power in the junior employees, but you can't leverage them the same way that you would in the past,' he said, noting that he looks for curiosity and resilience when hiring. Indeed CEO Chris Hyams said at Fortune's Workplace Innovation Summit in Dana Point, Calif. on Monday that AI can't completely replace a job. But Indeed's findings show that 'for about two-thirds of all jobs, 50% or more of those skills are things that today's generative AI can do reasonably well, or very well.' Still, language-learning app Duolingo and fintech app Klarna have recently walked back aggressive stances on replacing humans with AI. Some studies have also shown AI isn't panning out as much as hoped, so far. An IBM survey found that 3 in 4 AI initiatives fail to deliver their promised ROI. And a National Bureau of Economic Research study of workers in AI-exposed industries found that the technology had next to no impact on earnings or hours worked. 'It seems it's a much smaller and much slower transition than you might imagine if you had just studied the technology's potential in a vacuum,' University of Chicago economics professor Anders Humlum, one of the NBER study authors, previously told Fortune. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI is ‘breaking' entry-level jobs that Gen Z workers need to launch careers, LinkedIn exec warns
LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, said artificial intelligence is increasingly threatening the types of jobs that historically have served as stepping stones for young workers who are just beginning their careers. He likened the disruption to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s. As millions of students get ready to graduate this spring, their prospects for landing that first job that helps launch their careers is looking dimmer. In addition to an economy that's slowing amid tariff-induced uncertainty, artificial intelligence is threatening entry-level work that traditionally has served as stepping stones, according to LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, who likened the shift to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980s. 'Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption,' he wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed. 'Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder.' For example, AI tools are doing the types of simple coding and debugging tasks that junior software developers did to gain experience. AI is also doing work that young employees in the legal and retail sectors once did. And Wall Street firms are reportedly considering steep cuts to entry-level hiring. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for college graduates has been rising faster than for other workers in past few years, Raman pointed out, though there isn't definitive evidence yet that AI is the cause of the weak job market. To be sure, businesses aren't doing away with entry-level work altogether, as executives still seek fresh ideas from young workers, he added. AI has also freed up some junior employees to take on more advanced work earlier in their careers. But changes rippling through certain sectors today are likely heading for others in the future, with office jobs due to feel the biggest impact, Raman predicted. 'While the technology sector is feeling the first waves of change, reflecting A.I.'s mass adoption in this field, the erosion of traditional entry-level tasks is expected to play out in fields like finance, travel, food and professional services, too,' he said. To fix entry-level work, Raman called for colleges to incorporate AI across their curricula and for companies to give junior roles higher-level tasks. There are some signs that companies are adapting to the new AI landscape. CEO Timothy Young told Fortune's Diane Brady recently that 'the commoditization of intelligence' means hiring the smartest people is less important than developing staff to have management skills. 'There is a lot of power in the junior employees, but you can't leverage them the same way that you would in the past,' he said, noting that he looks for curiosity and resilience when hiring. Indeed CEO Chris Hyams said at Fortune's Workplace Innovation Summit in Dana Point, Calif. on Monday that AI can't completely replace a job. But Indeed's findings show that 'for about two-thirds of all jobs, 50% or more of those skills are things that today's generative AI can do reasonably well, or very well.' Still, language-learning app Duolingo and fintech app Klarna have recently walked back aggressive stances on replacing humans with AI. Some studies have also shown AI isn't panning out as much as hoped, so far. An IBM survey found that 3 in 4 AI initiatives fail to deliver their promised ROI. And a National Bureau of Economic Research study of workers in AI-exposed industries found that the technology had next to no impact on earnings or hours worked. 'It seems it's a much smaller and much slower transition than you might imagine if you had just studied the technology's potential in a vacuum,' University of Chicago economics professor Anders Humlum, one of the NBER study authors, previously told Fortune. This story was originally featured on
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Philosophy Degrees Set Graduates Up For Success
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 15: Students throw their caps in the air ahead of their graduation ceremony ... More at the Royal Festival Hall on July 15, 2014 in London, England. Students of the London College of Fashion, Management and Science and Media and Communication attended their graduation ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall today. (Photo by) The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released its latest report on labor market outcomes of college graduates by major. The analysis details the unemployment rate, median early-career (ages 22-27) annual salary, and median mid-career (ages 27-35) annual salary. The most recent update highlights data from 2023. Some of the results are unsurprising. Seven of the eight highest early-career annual salaries come with degrees in engineering. Likewise, the top five mid-career annual salaries also stem from engineering degrees, with aerospace engineering holding the top spot. There are also some unexpected findings. Graduates with degrees in physics are unemployed at a higher rate than every other of the 74 listed majors except for anthropology. Strangely, a computer engineering degree will land you a top-tier mid-career salary at $122,000, but it is also risky with a near 8% unemployment rate, which ranks third on the list. And then there is philosophy, the butt of endless jokes and smeared as 'worthless' in popular culture and beyond. With the recent pace of slashing entire academic departments and majors across the country, these jokes are not funny. And quite simply, the data does not back the wisecracks up. With a $48,000 median early-career annual salary, philosophy majors are in the middle of the pack. They earn more at the beginning of their careers than graduates in biology, psychology, and environmental studies. The 3.2% unemployment rate is a full point lower than the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. Furthermore, the unemployment rate of those graduating with a degree in philosophy is lower than some of the most popular degrees, such as finance, marketing, communications, and economics. Meanwhile, studying philosophy is a boon to those who continue their education. As of 2018, philosophy undergraduate degree holders score higher than any other major on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), a standardized test used in many disciplines to assess applicants to graduate programs. It doesn't take a diploma in rocket science to understand why those with engineering degrees are set up for success. It's generally a smooth path from commencement to employment, and engineering jobs are among the highest paid professions in the country. However, this is not the case with philosophy. A professional philosopher is almost exclusively an academic philosopher, which is an extremely risky career path. It takes more than a decade of training and teaching, and unlike other jobs with similar educational requirements, there are an increasingly limited number of job listings available each year. For the most part, an undergraduate degree in philosophy does not easily translate to a prosperous or thriving career as a practitioner of philosophy. Why, then, do they still find success? The answer here is similar to the explanation of why philosophy majors score higher on postgraduate entrance exams than any other major. With an engineering degree, you are taught about engineering. A physics major will be well-versed in physics. On most degree paths, you will learn what to think about that specific area of study. On the other hand, philosophy teaches you how to think. To study philosophy is to study logic, reason, argument, and how to trace a train of thought, all relevant to any career path you may choose. It may not bring the specific knowledge needed to succeed in a particular field, but it lays a foundation where mastery and expertise in any field can come easier. Although there had been a steady decline of college admissions since the pandemic, preliminary data for fall 2024 shows undergraduate enrollment increased by 3%. In a world drowning in Artificial Intelligence, new students would do well to look towards philosophy as a major if they hope to find long-term success.
