New reporting by the Wall Street Journal has revealed what many young workers are feeling: that the share of entry-level jobs appears to be shrinking.
The reporting draws on analysis by the Burning Glass Institute, a labor analytics firm. According to its study of unemployment rates among young people, the firm found that individuals of all education levels experienced higher levels of unemployment in 2023-2025 compared to 2018-2019.
By far the biggest change was felt by college students one year after earning their bachelor's degree, whose unemployment level rose from 3.8 percent to 4.9 percent. Those with graduate degrees didn't fare much better, rising a whole percentage point from 3.2 to 4.2 percent.
The unemployment rate among people who had some college and no degree, for comparison, rose 0.4 percent over the same period, while those with only a high school diploma rose 0.1. Overall, the unemployment rate for all recent graduates sits at over 6.6 percent, markedly higher than the national average, which hovers around 4 percent.
Meanwhile, the WSJ notes, white collar industries like finance and insurance are still growing, even as their worker base faces growing pressure in wage growth and long-term employment.
Together, the analysis seems to suggest that companies are becoming more efficient, despite slow-rolling new hires — which, though not everyone agrees, implies that AI is making things tougher in the job market.
"This is a more tectonic shift in the way employers are hiring," Matt Sigelman, president of Burning Glass, told the WSJ. "Employers are significantly more likely to be letting go of their workers at the entry level — and in many cases are stepping up their hiring of more experienced professionals."
As all this is going on, the WSJ reports that the entry-level job search platform Handshake has hosted 15 percent fewer listings compared to the last academic year. The number of applications per job, meanwhile, rose by around 30 percent.
Taken at face value, the future looks dark and uncertain. For example, who's providing support and training for the seasoned workers of tomorrow? What happens to global production when there are no more "experienced professionals" left to hire?
Luckily, history gives us some clues.
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