Unemployment is still low, but job seekers are competing for fewer openings, and hiring is sluggish. That’s a big turnaround from recent years.
For much of the last three years, employers were fighting one another for workers. Now the tables have turned a bit. Few employers are firing. Layoff rates remain near record lows. But fewer employers are hiring.
That has left job seekers, employed or unemployed, competing for limited openings. And younger, less experienced applicants — even those with freshly obtained college degrees — have been feeling left out.
A spring survey of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that hiring projections for this year’s college graduating class were below last year’s. And it showed that finance, insurance and real estate organizations were planning a 14.5 percent decrease in hiring this year, a sharp U-turn from its 16.7 percent increase last year.
Separately, the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the overall pace of hiring in professional and business services — a go-to for many young graduates — is down to levels not seen since 2009.
For recent graduates, ages 22 to 27, rates of unemployment and underemployment (defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree) have risen slightly since 2023, according to government data.
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