Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said college graduates a year ago found themselves entering a “pretty tremendous” market, citing strong wage growth and historically low unemployment rates.
“And it has been fairly strong through 2024,” Gould said of the overall job market. “Unemployment is up slightly since its low last year, but it remains low by historical standards. When you look compared to the booming labor market of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the unemployment rate for young adults is still lower than that today—pretty much lower than any time before 2018.”
Yet, while some key economic indicators look promising, hiring overall remains lower than pandemic levels, possibly making it more difficult for recent graduates to break into the market than a year ago, Gould said.
“And obviously, the thing we can’t ignore is the policy landscape, what’s happening right now,” she continued. “The federal layoffs, layoffs of contract workers, announcements of layoffs in the private sector, hiring freezes—all of these things can make it harder for young workers to break in. A lot of the data says that things are pretty good, but there’s obviously a fair amount of economic insecurity and concern on the horizon.”