Is AI Really to Blame for High Unemployment Among Recent Graduates? What Economists Say (npr.org)
- Reference: 0185094704
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/22/0418223/is-ai-really-to-blame-for-high-unemployment-among-recent-graduates-what-economists-say
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/18/nx-s1-5910677/recent-college-graduates-employment-job-artificial-intelligence
"But is AI really the problem, or is it more complicated?" [2]asks NPR . "Here's what economists have to say."
> According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent graduates — which it defines as 22-to-27-year-olds with a new bachelor's degree or higher — was 5.7% as of June, more than the rate for all workers, which stands at 4.1%... Stanford University economist Erik Brynjolfsson says AI is impacting the labor market for entry-level roles. "AI is not the whole story, but it's part of the story and the evidence is building," he says. Using payroll data, Brynjolfsson and his co-authors [3]found that since late 2022 — when large language models like ChatGPT started popping up — early-career workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed roles, like software developers and marketing managers, have experienced a 16% relative employment decline. In comparison, employment rates for older workers in AI-exposed fields and for all workers in jobs that aren't easily automated — like home health aides, physical therapists and construction workers — remained stable or have grown over that same time period... [Though he also says often when companies pull back on hiring, they cut junior roles first.]
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> Harvard University economist David Deming isn't convinced that AI is to blame for the challenging early-career job market. "If you look very carefully at the timing, it looks like the decline in junior hiring actually started a bit like six months before ChatGPT was released. And so what that tells me is it's something else," Deming says. "I think it's more like remote work." A [4]recent analysis from the New York Fed found that companies are less likely to hire recent college grads into roles that can be done remotely. As remote jobs increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, so did unemployment among younger college grads, the New York Fed found. The analysis also found that AI didn't explain the rise in unemployment among younger workers and that remote work was more of a driving force... Employers hiring for remote jobs may be less likely to choose an entry-level candidate because it's harder to train them from afar... [And with remote positions, there's many more senior candidates to choose from.]
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> And here's another thing to consider: University of Chicago economist Anders Humlum says if AI were replacing entry-level jobs, you'd expect to see companies that rely heavily on AI to hire fewer workers. But that's not what the data shows. Humlum points to [5]a study done by the financial accounting firm Ramp and the workforce research company Revelio Labs. The study examined AI spending and employee head count across more than 21,000 U.S. firms, from early 2021 to early 2026. It found that at companies making the largest AI investments, entry-level head count grew by 12% over the two years following AI adoption.
[1] https://www.ziprecruiter-research.org/economic-insights-research/grad-survey-2026
[2] https://www.npr.org/2026/08/18/nx-s1-5910677/recent-college-graduates-employment-job-artificial-intelligence
[3] https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/app/uploads/2025/11/CanariesintheCoalMine_Nov25.pdf
[4] https://www.npr.org/2026/06/01/nx-s1-5843076/remote-work-college-graduates-unemployment-ai
[5] https://ramp.com/data/ai-jobs-impact
The Twitter Effect. (Score:2)
Regardless of the oft-debated reasons Elon Musk chose to purchase Twitter, no CEO will ever be able to overlook what happened next. Which was effectively an eighty percent reduction in headcount with little real impact on operations.
When you have that kind of inarguable glaring statistic defining exactly how the tech world works with government to "create moar jobz", it becomes a bit painful to admit that those were never real jobs. Which eventually manifests in the job market of reality as a measure of u
They had massive impact on operations (Score:3)
If you actually use the site it has tons of technical problems. Also they completely eliminated all the manual moderation.
Twitter has a major problem. So the US Republican party are basically nazis. I don't say that as some dumb edgy insult I mean it. They are active fascists with a heavy emphasis on racism. This is not up for debate it's just a brute fact. We all know what the southern strategy is and we all know that the Republican party routinely engages in voter suppression.
Now the US Republican
It is not just due to AI (Score:1)
which allows people to offload their thinking from their own brains to a machine, but it is also government backed loans for students who obtain worthless degrees in majors such as the ones that end in the word "studies".Its government backed loans for students who obtain worthless degrees in majors such as the ones that end in the word "studies".
Do you like being lied to? (Score:3)
You can literally look up the statistics on degrees being awarded. Virtually no worthless degrees or being rewarded. Unless what you mean is that when somebody goes and studies a serious discipline and they can't get a job because we've created the economy with the same trickle down economics we've been cratering the economy with since Ronald Reagan then I mean yeah I guess but that's not really the fault of the student, there is plenty of work for them to be doing that would be useful to you and everyone e
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any examples of sources? You say you can look this up, then don't give a source.
Re: (Score:2)
Is your Google broken?
If you cannot be bothered the pry yourself away from right-wing propaganda then I cannot be bothered saving you.
Nothing I say to you will matter because you're going to go right back to Fox News or OEM or whatever your preferred source of lies is and any progress you made joining us in the real world will be completely and instantly undone.
You are the only one who can save yourself now. And I seriously doubt you can.
The short answer is "yes". (Score:2)
David Deming is conveniently ignoring the middle of Covid when people were being literally paid not to work.
This is almost trivially obvious across the white-collar universe. Companies aren't hiring junior-level employees because in many cases, AI can do almost as good of a job for a tiny fraction of the price.
The reality is, of course, more nuanced. Case in point, Most fields have both back-office and front-end workers. If you're back office, you'd better be 40+ and at the peak of your career, because
Re: (Score:2)
It's not today I can do their job trust me it can't. It does in many cases moderately increase productivity and there are a few cases where somebody who is basically an idiot can do something that they couldn't do before.
You are letting your sleeves show though when you go on about the covid pandemic that happened quite a while ago and has absolutely nothing to do with this. Just a friendly reminder that when the baby boomers die in the next few years because those rapacious motherfuckers took all the m
Re: (Score:2)
Remind us all again where "six months before ChatGPT was released" sits relative to the Covid pandemic?
To save you some Googling, that'd be March 11, 2020 (or earlier depending on how long CCP was hiding it) < November 30, 2022 < May 5, 2023.
Many companies hold back hiring (Score:3)
...because they merely expect AI to replace existing tasks. Whether it actually does is more nuanced. For example, many employees pressured to use AI say it makes their tasks harder by creating AI slop that needs cleaning up. They have to deal with mistakes that wouldn't be in a human draft or in existing time-tested templates. If and how fast employees will get better models or learn to prompt better is unknown.
It's essentially management's gamble. Those in the C-suite often don't spot or are slow to understand front-line patterns, as nobody likes delivering lackluster news to higher-ups. They'll typically hear, "There are a few learning curve hiccups, as expected, but we're making progress" even if the productivity ship is taking on a little water.
I'm old enough (Score:2)
I'm old enough to recall the olden time - two years ago - when the hiring had slowed because there were fears (that had gone nowhere, just muted) that US economy is overheated and about to enter a recession.
But I guess the underlying conditions for recession are harder to spot, when the economic data are dominated by inflation (gas prices) and inflation (AI bubble).
Alternate Hypotheses (Score:2)
1) Saturation / delayed retirement. There's only so many of X profession needed in a region. The excess stops pushing down wages and is simply not hired.
2) Too many managers, not enough workers. Somebody has to do the job.
3) Lack of economic growth. Growing companies need more hires.
Comparing to past history (Score:3)
"According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent graduates — which it defines as 22-to-27-year-olds with a new bachelor's degree or higher — was 5.7% as of June, more than the rate for all workers, which stands at 4.1%"
The unemployment rate may be 5.7% for recent graduates, but the underemployment rate is 42.0%. That counts people who are working at a job that doesn't require their college degree. The unemployment rate was as low as 3.9% in May 2022, when the underemployment rate was 40.7%. That means that the full-employment rate has been quite steady over the last few years. There has been very little change in job finding probabilities for a single individual.
However, there are factors that make a similar employment rate feel worse. College costs have risen, and today's graduates have a lot of debt, while inflation-adjusted salaries have lagged while inflation chugs ahead.
Yes, and... (Score:4, Insightful)
No economic situation is the result of one factor. Rarely is anything the result of one factor. Is AI having massive impacts on hiring? Absolutely. "Impacts" is a plural word. The economy is also struggling under Trump's immense mismanagement, with the rich getting richer and everyone else more likely to be getting fucked. The tariffs have increased inflation and driven a knife into the economy's gut worldwide. Is AI replacing jobs? Certainly. Is there need for people? Certainly. Are young people a pain in the ass to hire, train, and keep? Absolutely. Are they worse now than they were, say, 20 or 40 years ago? I don't rightly know. Every generation complains about the next and then shits all over them.
Re: (Score:2)
The phenomenon of "rich getting richer" is characteristic of all free markets during times of economic health. It's an easy thing to demonize but simple practical realities make this inescapable.
At its essence, acquiring wealth requires making investments (which could include building businesses just as much as buying ones that already exist). Making such investments requires capital. People who don't have any can maybe get a business loan, but that puts a harsh upper limit on how much they can earn from