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 who have recently graduated from college and are between the ages of 22 and 27, is nearing 6% —which is above the national unemployment rate of 4.2%.
Anecdotally in tech it feels like nobody wants to hire juniors anymore. I wouldn’t want to be a fresh grad these days.
I’m seeing a group of fresh geneticists from one of the best unis in the world wondering what to do as academia salaries are falling behind inflation and biotech is not hiring. It feels so fucked up that you have all these smart people being forced to do nothing because labour is limited by capital. “Most efficient way to organise the economy” my ass.
My entire working life always felt like there was an oversupply of workers. I’ve never been in a position where there was readily room for advancement. I’m not even talking about me, but my peers too.
It was always like, “Work this job for a few years and maybe a position will open.”
The first “real” job I had was at a bank and the executive of sales was like late-30s or early-40s. If I did the apply for a promotion every few years thing, I’d be significantly older than him before I was at that point.
How can they say you need all these years experience if the exec is so young. It didn’t make any sense.
His dad worked there as an executive.
I’ve watched this occur over the last 20 years. We’ve slowly automated away lots of work (or simply disposed of that work) that juniors would do which allowed juniors to grow into seniors. I’ve watched in horror as the ladder has been pulled up behind me knowing that others can’t take the path I did to success. Lots of things we used to fix, we simply dispose of, and a disposal worker needs much less skill and critical thinking to perform their job.
Its very difficult to mentor juniors now because I can’t see a path for most to advance.