College grads face a ‘tough and competitive’ job market this year, expert says
- College graduates are seeing higher level of unemployment this year compared to last.
- Job postings are down at campus recruiting platform Handshake, while the number of applications has risen.
- Experts advise staying positive, applying to smaller companies and networking to land a role.
New college graduates looking for work now are finding a tighter labor market than they expected even a few months ago.
The unemployment rate for recent college grads reached 5.8% in March, up from 4.6% the same time a year ago, according to an April report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Job postings at Handshake, a campus recruiting platform, are down 15% over the past year, while the number of applications has risen by 30%.
Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, says new grads are finding a “tough and competitive” market.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and certainly a lot of competition for the current graduates that are coming into the job market,” she said.
How federal job cuts hurt the Class of 2025
While the job creation in the U.S. has continued to show signs of strength, policy changes have driven the uncertainty.
President Donald Trump has frozen federal hiring and done mass firings of government workers. Evercore ISI, an investment bank, estimated earlier this month that 350,000 federal workers have been impacted by cuts from Department of Government Efficiency, representing roughly 15% of federal workers, with layoffs set to take effect over the coming months.
“In early January, the class of 2025 was on track to meet and even exceed the number of applications to federal government jobs,” Cruzvergara said. When the executive orders hit in mid-January there was “a pretty steep decline all of a sudden, she said.
“The federal government is one of the largest employers in this country, and also one of the largest employers for entry-level employees as well,” said Loujaina Abdelwahed, senior economist at Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence firm.
Employment uncertainty related to tariffs, AI
On-again, off-again tariff policies have created uncertainty for companies, with a third of chief executive officers in a recent CNBC survey expecting to cut jobs this year because of the import taxes.
Job losses from artificial intelligence technology are also a concern.
A majority, 62%, of the Class of 2025 are concerned about what AI will mean for their jobs, compared to 44% two years ago, according to a survey by Handshake. Graduates in the humanities and computer science are the most worried about AI’s impact on jobs.
“I think it’s more about a redefinition of the entry level than it is about an elimination of the entry level,” Cruzvergara said.
Postings for jobs in hospitality, education services, and sales were showing monthly growth through March, according to Revelio Labs. But almost all industries, with the exception of information jobs, saw pullbacks in April.
