American Military News by Emma Nelson -The Minnesota Star Tribune June 18, 2025
Hope Anderson tracks her job search in a spreadsheet, highlighting the rejections in red.
After more than six months and 40-plus applications, she’s seeing nothing but red.
“I knew it was going to be hard, and I knew it was going to be a lot of work,” said the 21-year-old Eden Prairie, Minnesota, resident, who graduated from Iowa State University in May with an event-management degree. “But I didn’t think that I would have absolutely nothing after months.”
A growing group of young, college-educated Americans are struggling to find work as the unemployment rate for recent graduates outpaces overall unemployment for the first time in decades.
While the national unemployment rate has hovered around 4% for months, the rate for 20-something degree holders is nearly 6%, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows. The amount of time young workers report being unemployed is also on the rise.
Economists attribute some of the shift to normal post-pandemic cooling of labor market, which is making it harder for job-seekers of all ages to land a gig. But there’s also widespread economic uncertainty causing employers to pull back on hiring and signs AI could replace entry-level positions.
Employers added 139,000 jobs in May with unemployment unchanged at 4.2%, according to data the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week.
But the report “points to an economy and employment that is weakening somewhat and gives some cause for continued concern over the direction of stagflation,” said David Royal, chief financial and investment officer at Thrivent Financial, in a statement.
More:
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2025/06/college-degree-no-longer-guarantees-post-grad-employment/