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Education United States

College Graduate Unemployment Hits 5.8%, Highest in Decades 151

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Recent college graduates face the worst job market in decades, with unemployment reaching 5.8%, according to recently released New York Federal Reserve data. The "recent-grad gap" - the difference between unemployment rates of young college graduates versus the overall labor force - has hit its lowest point in four decades, indicating college graduates are facing unusual difficulties securing employment. (The New York Federal Reserve said labor conditions for recent college graduates have "deteriorated noticeably" in the past few months.)

Even graduates from elite MBA programs are struggling to find work, while law school applications have surged as young people seek shelter from the difficult job market. Economists are attributing the decline to three potential factors: incomplete recovery from pandemic disruptions, diminishing returns on college education, and possibly AI replacing entry-level positions.

"When you think about what generative AI can do, it's the kind of things that young college grads have done," said David Deming, a Harvard economist. "They read and synthesize information and data. They produce reports and presentations."

Further reading: Young Men in US Abandoning College Education at Record Rates.

College Graduate Unemployment Hits 5.8%, Highest in Decades More | Reply

College Graduate Unemployment Hits 5.8%, Highest in Decades

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  • I don't think it's AI (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @12:19PM (#65356427)
    Not yet. That's coming and not that far off but we're probably at least a few years away. Right now the focus on AI isn't to replace College grads it's to replace rank and file customer service reps.

    The real problem is everybody knows a massive recession is coming because the United States is engineering one. So every company is going to be batting down the hatches. There's going to be less hiring. When people retire they're not going to be replaced or if they are replaced it's going to be with somebody offshore.

    The worst thing is if you're American you probably did this to yourself. Mind you with the way voter suppression works this wasn't what Americans actually wanted it was forced on us but still 77 million people thought it was a good idea to elect a senile old man who ran completely on tariffs and then those voters didn't bother to look up what a tariff was let alone what it would mean.

    To be fair our media completely failed them. And they did it on purpose. It was so bad we had to create a new word to describe it, sane washing

    • Mind you with the way voter suppression works

      What fucking voter suppression?!?!?

      There was no more than there was in 2020....which as the reports then said..."no problems with the safest elections".

      I'm sorry, asking for an ID to vote is NOT suppression...just common sense.

      Hell, even liberal Wisconsin just voted for voter ID overwhelmingly.

      For fucks sake....just how did the republicans swing and suppress the vote in all of those democrat held and run swing states and strongholds?!!?

      It's ok to gripe for

      • Re:I don't think it's AI (Score:4, Informative)

        by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @01:03PM (#65356585)

        You could simply be asked for your voter registration card that was mailed to you, which was perfectly adequate ID at the polls for decades.

        As for voter suppression, quite a few states purged voter rolls inappropriately or passed restrictions making it harder to vote.
        https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]

      • I'm sorry, asking for an ID to vote is NOT suppression...just common sense.

        It is if you intentionally make the ID difficult to get or clearly exclude certain groups. How you do the ID, the intentions of the people proposing it and the checks performed is the difference maker. Details, details, details are critical here.

        I could design a voter ID system that is both extremely fair and I could convince 90+ Americans about and I could design one to underhandedly exclude certain groups , make onerous ID requirements and close places to get ID's to make put an onerous burden on gettin [statecourtreport.org]

    • I don't deny this is bad news and signals an incipient recession. But what about credential inflation? The number of college graduates has nearly doubled since 2000:

      https://educationdata.org/numb... [educationdata.org]

      Have to wonder if demand has kept pace with that huge increase in supply.

      People are always talking about how great college students had it in the 1960's. But you have to realize that was a very small, select (not necessarily by merit) population of college students back then. Grant some privilege to eve

      • The number of college graduates has nearly doubled since 2000

        Seems like that number ought to be adjusted for population growth. This Web site [macrotrends.net] says US population in the year 2000 was 282,398,554 and in 2022 was 338,289,857 an increase of 19.8%. Assuming that's correct, the proportion of college graduates has only increased by (2015.0 / 1237.9) / 1.198 = 35.9%. Still a substantial increase, but I'm not sure how meaningful it is, since that's just the number of people graduated in each year, not the cumulative number of people with degrees.

        To put it another way, in 20

    • Not AI (yet), it's all the "winning". And Trump was right [x.com], it's too much and we're tired of it.

      "We're gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you'll say,
      'Please, please. It's too much winning. We can't take it anymore. Mr. President, it's too much.'

      - Donald Trump, April 12, 2016

    • I think it depends on the industry. There are software shops reducing headcount due to AI already, but I agree its probably not a huge factor YET.

    • Everything you just said has already happened and been that way for a year at least. IMO we're very likely already halfway through the recession.

  • I'd like to see the same data after factoring in underemployment.

    How many recent grads were doing what they considered "temporary, until I get a real job" work in the 12 months after graduation for Spring 2024 graduates? Compare that number + unemployment across the years going back a few decades and show me the chart.

    Do the same for "still looking for a real job, even if I have a temp gig lined up" for Spring 2025 graduates and compare that to graduates for the past few decades who were "still looking" ar

    • Why restrict that to just graduates? I know at least two engineers with 10+ years experience that are "underemployed" on contracts right now while looking for positions that are at their level of talent and experience.

      And we wonder why college grads can't find that work, when neither can people with relevant experience.

      By the way, these are all leading indicators of economic trouble on the horizon.

    • Underemployment Rates for Recent College Graduates [newyorkfed.org]. "Notes: The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. A job is classified as a college job if 50 percent or more of the people working in that job indicate that at least a bachelor's degree is necessary; otherwise, the job is classified as a non-college job. Rates are seasonally adjusted and smoothed with a three-month moving average. College graduates are those aged 22 to 65 w

  • Define "college." Does that include junior colleges, now euphemistically called "community colleges"? Does it include vocational "colleges"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      Define "college." Does that include junior colleges, now euphemistically called "community colleges"? Does it include vocational "colleges"?

      "Now"?? The term "community college" gained wider recognition and use in the late 1940s, after the Truman Commission Report of 1947 [trumanlibrary.gov]. Prior to that, the focus of junior colleges was to prepare students for transfer to 4-year schools, but the focus broadened to include offering vocational training and serving broader community needs. In 1967, the California state legislature enacted Senate Bill 669, which renamed the junior colleges to community colleges. Hardly a new term, or a euphemism.

    • Unemployment Rates for Recent College Graduates versus Other Groups [newyorkfed.org]: "Notes: Rates are seasonally adjusted and smoothed with a three-month moving average. All workers are those aged 16 to 65; college graduates are those aged 22 to 65 with a bachelor's degree or higher; recent college graduates are those aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor's degree or higher; young workers are those aged 22 to 27 without a bachelor's degree. All figures exclude those currently enrolled in school."

  • If the assertion that AI is consuming some of the entry level jobs is true, we're creating a similar problem to what we did with outsourcing.
    Shortly after outsourcing took over many low-mid level IT jobs, a skills gap emerged. There were older people who knew a lot, but the younger people weren't learning and/or were not learning and advancing as quickly. Some analysis revealed that the roles where they would traditionally learn more advanced skills were no longer there because they were overseas or part

  • It's complex, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @12:34PM (#65356469)

    ...one aspect may be the abundance of poorly trained graduates.
    The conventional wisdom is that everyone needs to go to college, talented or not.
    The best of the best are not having problems.
    The students who either have no talent or spent their time socializing, binge drinking and cheating on exams will have big problems.
    College should be about training the mind, not slouching through with minimum effort to "tick off a box" in a list of requirements

  • Look at the Cited Analysis! (Score:3)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @12:46PM (#65356499) Homepage

    https://www.newyorkfed.org/res... [newyorkfed.org]

    Rankings of Unemployment from lowest percent to highest percent:

    1990: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    1995: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2000: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2005: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2010: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2015: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2020: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
    2024: All college grads (age 22-27), recent college grads, all workers, young workers (age 22-27)

    The only thing that changes is the gap between the groups. All this chart shows is that:

    1) You're more likely to be employed if you graduate college.
    2) You're more likely to be employed if you're older (and presumably have experience)
    3) Young workers (age 22-27) are the most likely to be affected by recession, but college education reduces the likelihood of unemployment in those times.

    Also, unemployment for recent college grads has been as high or higher than it is now in 2009-2012 (mortgage crash), 2012-2013, and part of 2015. It's not symbolic of anything except an ensuing recession.

    • Re:Look at the Cited Analysis! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @12:49PM (#65356507) Homepage

      EDIT!! My kingdom for an edit button!!!. I added ages to the wrong group.

      https://www.newyorkfed.org/res... [newyorkfed.org]

      Rankings of Unemployment from lowest percent to highest percent:

      1990: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      1995: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2000: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2005: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2010: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2015: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2020: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)
      2024: All college grads, recent college grads (age 22-27), all workers, young workers (age 22-27)

      The only thing that changes is the gap between the groups. All this chart shows is that:

      1) You're more likely to be employed if you graduate college.
      2) You're more likely to be employed if you're older (and presumably have experience)
      3) Young workers (age 22-27) are the most likely to be affected by recession, but college education reduces the likelihood of unemployment in those times.

      Also, unemployment for recent college grads has been as high or higher than it is now in 2009-2012 (mortgage crash), 2012-2013, and part of 2015. It's not symbolic of anything except an ensuing recession.

    • college education reduces the likelihood of unemployment in those times.

      It actually shows that the population of college graduates has a smaller overlap by percentage with the population of unemployed. That is not the same as he claim that a generic college education will reduce the likelihood of unemployment of a specific generic person. Does anyone seriously think the only difference between the population of college graduates and the population of non-college graduates is a college degree? Or that graduating from Harvard is the same as graduating from Mankato State Universit

  • There are likely multiple causative factors (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Arrogant-Bastard ( 141720 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @01:45PM (#65356705)
    1. The US economy is currently being driven off a cliff by someone who hasn't got the slightest idea how economies work. Prudent business leaders know this and are preparing for the worst, and part of doing so means cutting back hiring.

    2. Yes, a lot (perhaps even most) of the AI craze is just hype, but some of it isn't. Moreover, what we know is hype may not appear to be so business leaders. Some of them have bought into it and modified their strategy based on it, specifically, they've cut back hiring because they think they can make it up with AI.

    3. Other countries (particularly the EU) are making it very clear that if the US doesn't want intelligent, literate, educated scholars that they do. Yes, right now they're looking for people with advanced degrees, but that's just a start -- it's what they've thrown together in a month. Give them a year or two and they'll have something far larger in place because they know a golden opportunity when they see one. And so someone finishing a BS in May 2025 may be served well by finishing an MS or two in 2027 or 2028 and considering Europe. (Of course by then other countries/regions will be doing the same thing.)

    4. There is the distinct possibility of another pandemic, and if that happens, it will likely be handled by Trump 2.0 just as incredibly badly as Trump 1.0 handled Covid. It took Biden four years of steady work to undo much of the economic damage but now of course all of that is being undercut as quickly as executive orders can be drafted by Trump's minions (I trust everyone knows he's illiterate and can't compose even a single cogent sentence). Business leaders may not have liked everything Biden did, but at least they could rely on him not to do anything impulsively stupid. That's not true of Trump, who is impulsively stupid by nature, and could very well completely undercut an entire market sector with a tweet.

    5. Speaking of impulsively stupid, the repeated threats of military force (e.g., Greenland, Mexico, etc.) are also bad for business. No CEO wants to wake up to find out that we're at war especially with a country that's an ally.

    6. The shutdown of foreign aid programs is devastating the American foothold in numerous countries around the world. We should help those people out because it's our moral obligation to do so but even if you don't have the baseline ethics required to understand that, then understand this: for decades, US foreign aid programs have been the foot in the door that have helped US businesses gain entry. And now...we've leaving. And China (among others) is wasting absolutely no time taking up the slack. We're ceding leadership, responsibility, and opportunity to them because these idiot children in DOGE have absolutely no concept of the long-term strategic value of expenditures.

    There's more, but the point is: business leaders,at least the competent ones, put aside political philosophy and look at the hard cold truth on the ground. And right now the truth is that the US is headed for a recession and possible worse, and it's only been three months so they must surely be asking themselves what will happen in three or six more. Personally, I expect things to get much, much worse...and I dearly hope I'm wrong.

  • It's not AI, what did you major in? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @01:56PM (#65356749) Homepage
    It's not AI, AI is not taking your job, if your job could be taken by AI, then what you majored in, or have your certifications in, isn't worth hiring for. With that out of the way, what are people actually majoring in? I'm in my late 30s, 15 years ago, it was comical how many people I'm friends with, were graduating with nearly useless degrees. Honestly, what are you going to do with a degree in History, Feminism Theory, Women's Studies, or Gender Studies?

    Ignoring the liberal arts, I know people who went into Engineering such as Embedded System Engineering, who wanted the Engineering degree, without the Engineering skill. I've offered interviews to graduates of the program I graduated from, Embedded System Engineering / Computer Engineering, and dear lord! An interview that you received because I respect some of the professors, and wanted to give you a chance. I know what you learned, I know the courses you took, the projects you did, and I design very fair interviews, building off your resume. I keep in touch with the professors, and they keep me updated, so I know you took C, a lot of C, more C then anyone should take, taught by a bleeping legend in Embedded programming, Jack. That being the case, and it was showing up on your resume, why the hell can't you explain what a pointer is, or program up a simple linked list?

    I think a lot of the problem is that people aren't as skilled as they should be. They've grown up in the era of "There is no I in team", yes, but there is a "me", so you need to have hard skill, and shine. Just having a degree means nothing, if you don't have the skill to back it up, and a path to utilize it. I don't care if you're nervous, or bad in interviews, that's reality, but when you can't answer simple questions, or you take offence to everything, or you're upset I didn't use your pronouns (yes that's happened), what did you think the outcome would be? I want to see a simple linked-list, but you've spent 10-minute complaining the GIT branch was called master, and one of the comments said Black List. (that really happened)

  • Let's be brutally honest (Score:4, Informative)

    by Inglix the Mad ( 576601 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @02:25PM (#65356853)
    Most of my clients are in a hiring / spending freeze, changing as little as possible.

    Most companies are trying to thread the needle. They can't even guess how tariffs are going to work, it changes constantly, so they're all hunkering down. The ones in the best position are trying to stay somewhat static in regards with employees, meaning they're trying to hold onto talent while this plays out. At the same time they're dropping any unnecessary leases, slowing production as necessary, and more, to avoid any long-term commitments. Why? So they don't get caught flat-footed if tariffs are lifted, nor are they on the hook if tariffs are held.

  • College graduate surplus (Score:3)

    by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Tuesday May 06, 2025 @03:13PM (#65357007)

    A degree doesn't guarantee a job. The "college for everyone" effort has provided a surplus of college graduates. This is independent of today's political climate or A.I.

    Before someone pursues a college degree, they need to be realistic regarding whether or not there is a demand for the degree. Useless "fluff degrees" have little demand. In addition, there is a surplus of C.S. degrees due to their popularity.

    • Before someone pursues a college degree, they need to be realistic regarding whether or not there is a demand for the degree.

      Yes, every generation since the Boomers has to do that, because they got subsidized college and the rest of us got a student loan program instead. They got to get an education if they wanted to, and we didn't. Somehow that didn't make them smart enough to vote to keep funding education so we could continue to have educated voters, though. They just pulled up the ladder after 'em, and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.

  • ... that four years of partying and indoctrination aren't actually all that great for job prep.

  • 5% unemployment used to be considered "full" employment. Now it's a cataclysm. Interesting how perspectives change.

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