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

Source: NBC News

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.

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.

“Recent college graduates are on the margin of the labor market, and so they’re the first to feel when the labor market slows and hiring slows,” said Jaison Abel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Across the economy, hiring in recent months has ground to its slowest pace since the start of the pandemic, with employers adding just 73,000 jobs in July, according to data released Friday. The number of longer-term unemployed people who have been out of work for more than 27 weeks increased last month by 179,000 to 1.8 million.



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