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Key Takeaways Recent college graduates are entering the toughest labor market since the pandemic.
Unemployment for 22- to 27-year-old bachelor’s degree holders has risen to about 5.6%.
The slowdown in hiring is due to a “low-hire, low-fire” environment.
New college graduates this year are facing the bleakest hiring landscape since the pandemic. Demand for degree-bearing roles has stalled just as a wave of young workers enters the market, according to a recent report from The New York Times.
Employers have become more cautious about hiring, automating more tasks and favoring experienced candidates over entry-level hires, according to the Times. The result is higher unemployment and intense competition for a shrinking pool of suitable jobs.
An analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the unemployment rate for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree rose to around 5.6% by late 2025, the highest in three years and notably worse than the overall rate of 4.2%.
More than 40% of employed recent graduates are in roles that do not require a bachelor’s degree, the highest share since 2020, per the Federal Reserve Bank. Even when new graduates find work, many are not using the skills or credentials they just paid for.
“The appetite for hiring is definitely decreasing,” Alli Goossens, the assistant director of employer engagement at North Dakota State University, told the Times. She noticed that fewer employers attended the university’s recent career fair. Some employers informed her that they were pulling back on hiring.
“It was just reduced hiring numbers,” she told the Times. “They just weren’t hiring quite as many.”
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