July 18, 2025
Almost 60% of current grads are out of labor in comparison with earlier generations.
New analysis reveals simply how a lot more durable it’s for Gen Z to safe a job after commencement in comparison with earlier generations.
A brand new report from Kickresume reveals that 58% of current grads are nonetheless job looking, in comparison with simply 25% of older generations like millennials, Gen Xers, and child boomers. The findings come as Gen Z continues to voice frustration with a troublesome job market, whereas some older generations dismiss their struggles as an indication of laziness.
“The journey from classroom to profession has by no means been easy,” the researchers wrote. “But it surely’s clear that right this moment’s graduates are coming into a job market that’s extra unsure, extra digital, and arguably extra demanding than ever.”
Amid the rise of AI and widespread layoffs, researchers discovered that almost 40% of previous graduates secured full-time jobs by commencement, whereas solely 12% of current Gen Z grads have completed the identical, making them thrice much less prone to have a job lined up proper after faculty. Including to the dismal actuality, about 20% of job seekers have been looking for work for 10 to 12 months, and final yr, roughly 40% of unemployed people reported not touchdown a single job interview in 2024.
The hiring course of has turn into harder, with employers requiring candidates to move uncommon logic exams and persona quizzes simply to be thought-about. Many younger professionals are spending full-time hours job looking, generally sending out as many as 1,700 purposes, solely to face rejection, all whereas competing in opposition to corporations utilizing AI to display screen resumes.
Gone are the times when a university diploma assured a job. Now, 4.3 million younger persons are NEETs: not in training, employment, or coaching. This has turn into a world downside, with the UK experiencing a 100,000 enhance in its NEET inhabitants in simply the previous yr.
“Universities aren’t intentionally setting college students as much as fail, however the system is failing to ship on its implicit promise,” Lewis Maleh, CEO of staffing and recruitment company Bentley Lewis, informed Fortune.
Although these findings don’t enhance job hunters’ confidence in an unstable economic system and hard job market, researchers advise younger professionals to grab any alternative relatively than maintain out for his or her dream job.
“We frequently inform graduates to not stress an excessive amount of about their first job,” researchers wrote. “It’s simply a place to begin, not a life sentence.”
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