By Audrey Elwood, Columnist 

With the end of semester looming, seniors have been facing what, according to Yahoo Finance, has been called the worst job market in 37 years. Yes, the job market is predicted to be even worse than it was during the 2008 recession. The class of 2026 entered college in 2022, during the post-pandemic job surge, where job hopping was the norm. Now, many fresh graduates cannot even find one entry level job. 

The same article finds that the new graduate unemployment rate is sitting around 5.7% compared to the overall unemployment rate at 4.3%. While this statistic has been thrown around to scare recent college graduates into believing that college was a waste of time, it does not give the full context. Non-college educated people aged 22-27 generally have an unemployment rate of 7.8%, which is obviously higher than new graduates with a degree. 

Recent messaging from the government and social media has been that college degrees are simply not worth it. While some majors have a low return on investment, it is a worthwhile investment for the majority of people. In a statistic derived from the Education Data Initiative, the average return on investment for a college degree is 681.95%. The data also suggests that, for the first decade post-graduation, a college degree actually has a negative return due to factors such as lost time in the stock market for returns combined with lost career progression early on. 

It is true that AI has replaced many entry level jobs. In an Anthropic release, the company behind Claude, released a graph of current AI capabilities, versus the possibility of AI capabilities. Frankly, looking at the graph is anxiety inducing, as white collar jobs are expected to consolidate as menial workplace tasks are done increasingly by AI.

Anthropic obviously has a stake in inflating AI’s capabilities. St. Johns University illustrates that there is a demonstrated lack of entry level positions in companies integrating more AI usage. With so few opportunities for entry-level jobs, Gen Z will face difficulty getting their foot in the door. AI usage is growing at every company, and there is reason to panic for new graduates. 

The truth is, employment and career has changed dramatically, ever since Gen Z first entered the workforce. Underemployment is the phenomena of people working jobs below their experience, like an engineering major becoming a barista. The number of people underemployed is scarily high when you look at the statistics. The New York FED estimates that, for new graduates, it is around 42.5%. Xavier loves to boast its 98% post-graduates employment or volunteering rate which is not wrong, but could be seen as misleading, as there is no differentiation from underemployment against qualified employment.

With the rise of online job boards, ghost jobs have popped up. Ghost jobs are when employers make fake listings to imply that they are more successful than they are. Forbes finds that an estimated one in seven jobs are fake. It is not uncommon for people to apply to 100-plus jobs before landing one interview. 

New graduates have good reason to be nervous about the future of work. The employment market is significantly harder to navigate than it was previously. Our parents could walk in with a resume and a smile, and get the job on the spot, but a veritable fairytale today. While some is fear-mongering, a large portion of the fear is reasonable. 

To the Class of 2026, good luck in this job market, you are going to need it.