'A black hole': New graduates discover a dismal job market

[dalton99a]

Last edited Tue Aug 5, 2025, 11:51 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/job-market-report-college-student-graduates-ai-trump-tariffs-rcna221693

'A black hole': New graduates discover a dismal job market
Recent college graduates searching for jobs are finding that practical degrees, work experience and even connections are no match for sluggish hiring.
Aug. 2, 2025, 5:00 AM CDT
By Shannon Pettypiece

Recent graduates looking to enter an increasingly shaky labor market are painting a dire picture of their job search: “A black hole,” one said. “I’m disheartened,” said another. “I almost feel like it wasn’t worth going to school,” said a third.

NBC News asked people who recently finished technical school, college or graduate school how their job application process was going, and in more than 100 responses, the graduates described months spent searching for a job, hundreds of applications and zero responses from employers — even with degrees once thought to be in high demand, like computer science or engineering. Some said they struggled to get an hourly retail position or are making salaries well below what they had been expecting in fields they hadn’t planned to work in.

“It was very frustrating,” said Jensen Kornfeind, who graduated this spring from Temple University with a degree in international trade. “Out of 70-plus job applications, I had three job interviews, and out of those three, I got ghosted from two of them.”

The national economic data backs up their experience. The unemployment rate among recent graduates has been increasing this year to an average of 5.3%, compared to around 4% for the labor force as a whole, making it one of the toughest job markets for recent graduates since 2015, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Friday.

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FWIW there will be fewer colleges:

https://hechingerreport.org/the-impact-of-this-is-economic-decline/

The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges — and the economy
America is about to go over the ‘demographic cliff’
by Jon Marcus
January 8, 2025

Pickup trucks with trailers and cars with yawning trunks pulled up onto untended lawns in front of buildings from which people lugged books, furniture, mattresses, trophy cases and artwork.

Anything else of value had already been sold by a company that specializes in auctioning off the leftover assets of failed businesses. At least one of the buildings was soon to be demolished altogether, its red-brick walls dumped into its 1921 foundation.

This was the unceremonious end of Iowa Wesleyan University, a 181-year-old institution that closed in 2023 after financial losses due in part to discounts it gave out as it struggled to attract a shrinking pool of students.

There will soon be many more such scenes, a preponderance of evidence suggests. That’s because the current class of high school seniors is the last before a long decline begins in the number of 18-year-olds — the traditional age of students when they enter college.

This so-called demographic cliff has been predicted ever since Americans started having fewer babies at the advent of the Great Recession around the end of 2007 — a falling birth rate that has not recovered since, except for a slight blip after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Demographers say it will finally arrive in the fall of this year. That’s when recruiting offices will begin to confront the long-anticipated drop-off in the number of applicants from among the next class of high school seniors.

[drray23]

1. that is unfortunate

Especially for the poor sap who graduated in international trade.

“It was very frustrating,” said Jensen Kornfeind, who graduated this spring from Temple University with a degree in international trade. “Out of 70-plus job applications, I had three job interviews, and out of those three, I got ghosted from two of them.”

I can't imagine that international trade will fare well under Trump. Given his tariffs shenanigans we will soon have few opportunities for international trade...

[newdeal2]

2. Nobody can afford to change jobs or retire in Trump's economy

So there are no existing jobs that need to be backfilled right now.

No net new jobs because of the tariffs and other uncertainty preventing businesses from expanding.

And layoffs from AI which is replacing entry level jobs.

I hear ICE is hiring though.

[msongs]

3. I hear ICE is hiring nt