Young graduates are facing an employment crisis

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Causes of the “crisis” for young grads

  • Several see a structural mismatch: many degrees in “fluff” or narrow majors (e.g. “health communications”) vs demand in areas like nursing, elementary ed, trades, and some STEM.
  • Others argue the economy itself is fine but entry‑level white‑collar roles have been hollowed out (similar to 2008 and dot‑com), with juniors squeezed between AI hype, offshoring, and a glut of laid‑off mid‑career workers.
  • Debate over AI’s real impact: some say management has over‑bought the “10x engineer with AI tools” narrative, suppressing hiring; others stress tax/R&D changes and cost‑cutting as bigger drivers.

Data, unemployment, and underemployment

  • Article’s headline “crisis” is challenged: new‑grad unemployment ~6–7%, highest since ~2014 excluding Covid, but not obviously catastrophic vs past recessions.
  • What is unusual: recent data show young college grads now have higher unemployment than the overall population—historically the reverse.
  • Multiple commenters emphasize underemployment (retail/restaurant work with degrees) as the hidden story; official stats don’t capture this well.

H1B, offshoring, and discrimination debates

  • Some hiring managers report being told to hire “H1B only” or only in India/overseas; others say large firms do the opposite (citizens only except in special cases).
  • Sharp disagreement on whether this is “treasonous,” merely illegal fraud, or just rational use of the “free market.”
  • Counter‑view: favoring Americans for jobs can itself be discriminatory; another segment insists offshoring/H1B is the primary reason juniors can’t get hired.

Education quality, AI, and skills

  • Professors and interviewers report alarming numbers of students and new grads unable to write FizzBuzz or basic loops without ChatGPT; heavy concern about cheating and “AI‑dependent” learning.
  • Some educators respond with in‑class, no‑device exams; others argue this is testing the wrong thing and that education should pivot to “programming with AI” and deeper understanding.
  • Post‑Covid cohorts are suspected by some of having weaker foundational skills, though others call this overblown.

Broken recruiting and ATS/LLM arms race

  • Many describe hiring as a low‑trust “numbers game”: thousands of applications, ATS filters, ghosting, fake resumes and even fake interviews.
  • LLM‑written resumes and employer LLM filters create an “AI vs AI” arms race; some claim using an LLM to generate the right buzzword‑heavy summary noticeably increases interview rates.
  • Result: good candidates get filtered out; hiring managers complain about interview quality despite a large supply of unemployed grads.

Generational conflict, housing, and politics

  • Strong resentment about older homeowners benefiting from cheap past housing and current asset inflation, while younger cohorts face high rents, low security, and student debt.
  • Canadian and US commenters link youth unemployment to housing unaffordability and rising intergenerational transfers (pensions, social security).
  • This feeds broader pessimism: talk of “serfs,” crumbling democracy, and the appeal of populist politics from both left and right.

Role of older workers and Social Security

  • Some originally blamed delayed retirements; others clarify that working past retirement age doesn’t reduce Social Security and may even strengthen the system via continued payroll taxes.
  • One view: government policies that “deflate the retirement rate” crowd out youth; another: the job pie isn’t fixed, more people working usually expands total employment.

Value of college and degrees

  • Disagreement over whether mass higher education still pays: some cite wage data showing degree holders still earn more; others argue college is over‑prescribed and often doesn’t increase real societal usefulness.
  • Non‑vocational degrees are criticized as a societal misallocation; defenders stress networking, maturity, and broad intellectual development.
  • Several note that degrees once served as a rough IQ/ability filter, but credential inflation and weaker cohorts have eroded that signal.

Historical parallels and coping strategies

  • Many mid‑career commenters recall graduating into recessions (early 90s, 2001, 2008) and say cycles of “graduate crises” are normal, but concede this one feels harsher for CS/SWE.
  • Advice themes:
    • Keep costs low, take some job (even outside your field) while you search.
    • Build real projects, contribute to open source, and network aggressively to bypass ATS.
    • Consider trades, nursing, or entrepreneurship; a few encourage creating your own job rather than waiting for corporate rescue.
  • Others warn against “false optimism”: improving efficiency (offshoring + AI) may permanently reduce demand for junior white‑collar workers, and relying on a new boom to fix it is a gamble.