ADRIAN MA, HOST:
If you want to know how the economy is doing, there are a lot of things you could look to - the price of gas, the cost of housing, the stock market. But for a lot of people, the most basic indicator of whether the economy is working for them is whether they have a job. And the fact is the term reverberating through the job market right now is low fire, low hire. That is, employers overall aren't cutting many jobs, but they also aren't adding much either. And this stagnation, the lack of workers flowing in and out of the labor force, poses a particular challenge to those hoping to break in to start their careers, like for Sanyu Lacoma (ph), a junior at Howard University studying broadcast journalism.
SANYU LACOMA: There's definitely anxiety because not only is the job market getting more challenging to navigate, but prices are getting higher. I know all my friends who go to school in Boston, New York, LA, D.C., Houston, we're seeing a lot of prices rising. And when we are graduating from college, our degree is great, what we studied is great, but not having a job is dangerous.
MA: Over the past few years, there's been a steady increase in the unemployment rate for recent college grads. That's according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And recently, that unemployment rate's been around 5.6%, which is the highest it's been since the pandemic. But of course, that stat only tells part of the story. So that's why we went to Howard University's campus to talk to some soon-to-be graduates.
Part of the reason we're here today is to get the perspective of some people who are near the beginning of their careers, sort of on the cusp of graduation and getting their thoughts and feelings about their job search experience. Tell me about your job search process. How's that been going?
MONICA MAYA: Yes, yes. Actually, I was having a little bit of trouble, honestly. Sometimes you apply to something, and you maybe don't hear it back whether it's a denial or an acceptance. You kind of just have to keep it moving.
MA: That's Monica Maya (ph), a senior who's majoring in chemical engineering.
MAYA: I know that all the nos are leading me to my yeses, so that's kind of how I look at it, but I will say, there's a lot of extra steps that need to be taken than just going to the career site and applying online. All of the internships, any sort of opportunity that I've secured here at Howard was by a point of contact that I had already met previously, yes.
MA: With a human? OK.
MAYA: Yes.
MA: Can I ask, do you know roughly about how many jobs you've applied for?
MAYA: Yeah. In the past six months, I would say probably 50 jobs. And have I heard back? You know, some denials, but yeah, I haven't actually secured the position that I want yet, so I'm still looking.
MA: Now, a little or even a lot of job search anxiety is normal, but there is no denying that recent grads or soon-to-be grads are facing some additional obstacles right now. And to better understand those, we turn to Laura Ullrich. As an economist for the job listing site, Indeed, she has a ton of data at her fingertips on employers and job seekers. And so, given all the negative data, I asked her to put it in context. How worried should young job seekers be?
LAURA ULLRICH: It depends on what field these new grads are going into. You know, overall, the rate has risen, but this isn't true for all people who are graduating college. Actually, my oldest son graduated college last year and is going into data science, and that is a field where at Indeed, we're seeing job postings are down 30% compared to pre-COVID. So that's a hard field to go into. But there are many more where postings remain very elevated. So civil engineering, for example, is up about 40% compared to pre-COVID. So if he had a civil engineering degree, he would probably be just fine in terms of getting a job. But in the fields where we have seen pullback and postings are low, it is much harder for those new grads. So I worry sometimes when we paint this blanket picture that it's tough for all new grads. I don't think that's the case, but in certain fields, it's extremely tough right now.
MA: Well, can you go more into that? Like, what does your data show in terms of what kinds of skills or majors employers are looking for in this moment?
ULLRICH: We have definitely seen a decline in tech postings, so across things like software engineering, data and analytics, you know, things that are related to tech. Part of that is because of what's going on in the economy right now. Part of it is about the uncertainty around AI. Majors like computer science, but also data sites, data analytics, business is tougher right now, but we still see a lot of strength in engineering, but also all of the health care fields and certainly also in, like, the skilled trades. So if you're coming out of community college with an associate degree in plumbing or you're ready to become an electrician, there's still a lot of opportunities in those fields.
So I would call it an adjustment phase where people who have majored in fields like computer science - before, they could graduate and have a very narrow job search and get a job. And that is changing. Those job searches are going to have to be broader now. And in 2026, those graduates are likely to find jobs. It's just going to take longer, and they may not get the same salaries they were expecting two years ago.
MA: To just go more into, like, what is making employers reluctant to fire or hire right now, is it just sort of, like, how they're figuring in AI or is - how much of the story is, like, the demographics of the workforce, like people working longer, and how much of it is maybe uncertainty created by things like the tariff policy of the Trump administration?
ULLRICH: You know, there's a saying in economics and finance that markets hate uncertainty, and there is a very high degree of economic uncertainty right now. You can - there's actually something called the economic uncertainty index that has been at much higher levels in the past year or so than we've seen previously in this country. And so there's a lot of uncertainty. And what we know about uncertainty is that people have a hard time making decisions in the presence of it, and businesses are run by people, right? So it's very hard to know how many people you want to hire in 2026, right?
What do you want to do to the size of your team in a world right now where policy uncertainty is high, gas prices are up, right? Inflation looks like it's going up some. Fewer people are leaving their jobs, so you're not having the same level of attrition and turnover that you normally have, right? It's hard for business leaders to make decisions. So as an economist, I'm not surprised that we're seeing the stagnancy we're seeing in the labor market. However, when you have that stagnancy and you don't have a lot of turn going on, it's not great for people. I mean, there's reasons why people should change jobs - right? - and should take risk and move on to new positions. And certainly, we want new people who are graduating from college to get those first great job opportunities.
And so that lack of churn, there's a real cost associated with that. So, you know, the way I've been characterizing the market recently is like, if you have a job, the probability that you're going to be laid off from your current job is low right now, unless you're in a few targeted sectors. But for most people in the U.S. right now, the probability of being laid off is very low. However, if you are unemployed, it is much more difficult to find a job in 2026 than it was a couple years ago.
MA: We went to a college campus and spoke to some seniors who are on the cusp of graduating, and one of the things that they mentioned was that they feel like they have to compete not just with other job applicants, but with, like, bots who are applying for jobs. And sometimes they come across listings that appear to be ghost jobs, which are, I guess, listings for jobs that don't actually exist. Do you have any data that gives us a sense of, like, how big of an issue this is?
ULLRICH: We do. We have ways that we can see, like, whether or not employers are interacting with jobs, so whether or not, you know, there are postings that appear not to be, quote, "real." I will say we're not seeing big increases there. What I do think is happening though is that there are a lot more applicants per job right now because there's more people looking for jobs, right? And so I do think there are more people who are just not hearing back from companies. And so they may feel like it's not a real job, but there is someone that's hearing back, right? There is employer engagement. They're just not getting that engagement themselves, which is very frustrating. And certainly, you can understand why people then jump to, well, this must not be a real job.
And another thing I'll say is that for these new grads, they're also competing not only with other new grads, but also maybe with people that have two or three years' experience that are in the market - right? - for these same types of position. And so one of the things we have seen in our data is what we call experience creep where companies in tech, specifically, are asking for more years of experience than they did before for the same job because they can.
MA: One person we spoke to said they've applied to dozens of jobs, and it sometimes feels like - you know, is anybody there? - and that really the way to get a job these days, as the old advice goes, is to know somebody - right? - to know a human who you can talk to. What do you think of that?
ULLRICH: I think networking and having contacts within the industry is always a good thing. I certainly encourage my own young adult children to do that - get out, meet people, go to meetups in the area you want to work in, try to connect with people. I have young economists connect with me on LinkedIn all the time, and I'm happy to talk to them about the labor market and give them advice. So connect with people in the field that you want to work in. That never hurts. I also think, though, in 2026, there are ways that people can improve their resume and really highlight their skills in ways that you couldn't do previously through using AI - right? - to improve your resume. Like, have AI evaluate your resume. You could even tell Claude or ChatGPT, hey, you know, I'm a job seeker in this field. Look at my resume and give me some tips on where you think I'm weak for this particular job description, right? So there are ways that you can improve that, right?
You should not just be taking a boilerplate resume and submitting it to 50 different jobs at once. That's probably not the best way to go about this. I think in a market where the number of applicants is up, you want to find ways to really be tailoring your portfolio of what you're submitting to that employer to the job you're applying to and to the company you're applying to.
MA: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has a stat where they say more than 40% of recent college graduates are working in fields that typically don't require a college degree. So I think some people could look at this and think, well, why go to college at all? What would you tell them?
ULLRICH: Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up because one thing that I worry about as an economist who has studied this type of data for a long time is that we're discouraging people from going to college. And what we know about college graduates is that they have lower unemployment rates overall, higher wages, more economic stability, lower probability of ever becoming unemployed, etc., etc., etc. than people that don't get a college degree. So still, the path towards kind of the, quote, "American dream" that many people are working towards is a college degree. I do not think that has changed.
If you look - and even if you look at computer science graduates, for example, in the past few years, they have had a harder time coming right out of college, getting a job over the past year or so compared to previous time periods. But if you look compared to non-computer science grads, they're still making higher incomes and doing better than those who didn't graduate from college or who have different types of degrees. So I think we have to be careful to hold two things true at once. One is that those with a college degree would still be expected over time to make much more money than those who didn't graduate from college, and right now it's really tough for those graduating.
MA: Any advice for people who are graduating soon or just trying to break into their first jobs?
ULLRICH: Yeah, absolutely. I would say, keep your head up, keep working towards landing that job you want. I think staying an active seeker is the best possible solution while you're still trying to network and meet people and get out there. And really, that's the biggest concern from an economic perspective is that these folks will become discouraged and stop seeking as actively and then not end up in the type of job they should be in. So I just, you know, encourage new grads, including my own kids, like, keep your head up, keep marching forward. You're going to land that first job. It may not be the one you thought you were going to be in, but I think if you continue to work hard, the market will turn at some point. It'll change, and you want to be primed and ready to move up into that next job.
MA: We've been speaking with Laura Ullrich, a director of research at Indeed's Hiring Lab. Laura Ullrich, thanks for being here.
ULLRICH: Thanks so much.
MA: OK, so Ullrich says the market will turn around eventually, but will that change come in time for students graduating this year? While we were at Howard University's campus, senior Monica Maya told us that she could have actually graduated last year, but she stayed on a fifth because she wasn't finding the kind of jobs she was hoping for. So I asked her how's she feeling now about her job prospects with graduation just around the corner.
Are you sort of feeling optimistic or starting to get a little worried?
MAYA: Right now, I'm really just taking it one day at a time, one application at a time, one LinkedIn connection at a time. And I'm very excited for the future. I think it'll be good.
MA: So Maya, at least, is keeping her head up.
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