TO The Vox reader asks: Maybe it’s because I am a new graduate, graduating with my degree in May Yippee! But it seems that everyone is super pessimistic about the labor market these days. Do you have a more difficult bone to get a job for people in recent years, or finally I am throwing my childhood naivety and force me to wake up with the way the labor market always has bone?
Congratulations on your graduation! That is a genuine achievement that is worth celebrating, even in the midst of labor market concerns.
The brief answer to your question is that, unfortunately, economic data confirms what you are feeling: the labor market is really more challenging for new graduates at this time, and it is not just the optimism of your cardia that vanishes.
You and your classmates have faced unique and difficult circumstances. You start the university duration of a pandemic, and now enter a labor market that is changing below your feet so that you can feel discouraging, just even if they drive for much larger economic and technological forces.
This is not the first time that graduates have faced a difficult transition. The great recession in 2008 led to hire freezing and layoffs that prevented new workers from terrifying entry level work. The labor market took the time to heal after the unemployed reached its maximum point in 2009, but constantly improved until the pandemic interrupted that progress.
What new graduates face
The figures of the first quarter of 2025 of the Federal Reserve of New York show that the inempleal rate for recent university graduates reached 5.8 percent, compared to 4.8 percent in January.
Companies have also retired from hiring. The past fall, employers expected to increase the hiring of university graduates by 7.3 percent, according to a survey led by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. They are now projecting only an increase of 0.6 percent, with approximately 11 percent of the company that plans to hire new graduates than before.
Some different factors are working together to create this challenging environment.
First, new tariffs have created economic uncertainty. The stock market responded accordingly, with the S&P 500 less than 6.5 percent from the day of the inauguration. As a result, companies hesitate to expand their workforce.
The elephant in the room here, that the great recession graduates did not have to deal with artificial intelligence. There is evidence that AI could be affecting entry level opportunities. The tasks typically carried out by the new university graduates, synthesizing information, producing reports, aligned with what the generative AI can now handle now.
And although the inempleal rate for recent graduates is 5.8 percent, the in general The non -impotence rate is 4.2 percent, a record gap. This suggests that, although companies are not depositing workers because AI and Masse, they can be using AI to do work that seemed otherwise that they have gone to new graduates.
It is understandable frustrating when it has done everything “well”, obtained its title and prepared for the labor market, only to face conditions that are more challenging than in recent years.
The good news about the labor market
Despite the thesis challenges, some sectors are still actively hiring.
Medical care represents 34 percent of the total payroll profits this year. Engineering positions, especially electronic engineering, offer opportunities with high initial salaries (projected at $ 78,731). Special education roles are abundant and, although federal hiring has hired, state and local governments remain strong for hiring entry level. Sales are constantly among the best fields for new university graduates.
In the front of the rates, the situation seems to be folding a corner now, since the values markets digest news from the recent agreement of President Donald Trump with China. This agreement could help prevent a complete recession and improve the exit for the hiring of university graduates.
The reality is that your job search can take more time than you expected. About 80 percent of older people told Ziprecruiter in March that they start working within three months after graduation, but in reality, only about 77 percent of recent graduation classes began so fast. If you have been for you or your classmates for a while, that is not a personal failure, it is simply a reflection of the market that is between.
His question asked if this is only “the way the labor market always has the leg.” The truth is that labor markets fluctuate, and the moment of their graduation coincides with a particularly challenging period. But previous generations have faced similar challenges and found their way, and their own will also.