(Originally aired 7/1/2025) Newly minted college graduates are having a harder time landing that first job than in recent years. Is it AI? Is college useless? Is it a crisis? (No. No. And not yet…) College graduates under 27 still have significantly lower unemployment rates (5.8%) than high school graduates of the same age (6.9%). What economist Kathryn Edwards finds worrying is that these new workers, who are typically a lagging economic indicator, may in this case be a bellwether of a weakening economy.
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Read More:
- The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates [New York Fed, 2025]
- Hires, from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey [St. Louis Fed, 2025]
- Downskilling: changes in employer skill requirements over the business cycle [Labour Economics 2016]
- Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skill When Workers Are Plentiful? [The Review of Economics and Statistics 2020]