May 24, 2026 • 

Earlier this month, AOL released this article: “A Bad Job Market Is Radicalizing College Grads and Changing the Workforce.” Here’s an excerpt:

“The American dream of graduating from college and landing a great job isn’t the reality in 2026. Recent college graduates have a higher unemployment rate than the national average (5.7 percent vs. 4.3 percent). Far worse is the underemployment rate. 42.5 percent of recent grads are considered underemployed. That’s the highest rate since 2020, when the pandemic first hit. …

“‘The numbers look bad and they’ve looked bad for a while,’ [New York Times labor reporter Noam] Scheiber said recently on the Marketplace All-in-One podcast. ‘They also look like they’re getting worse.’ While the stock market is booming, corporations are very cautious about hiring, due to the advent of AI and macro uncertainty about world stability and the global economy.”

CNBC recently reported: “The AI economy is rewriting the American Dream — and blue-collar workers are poised to win”:

“For much of the postwar era, the American bargain was clear: Go to college, get a degree and claim your place in the middle class. As factories gave way to offices and the U.S. economy increasingly rewarded credentials over physical labor, a four-year diploma became one of the clearest symbols of upward mobility. But as AI spreads across corporate America and begins to absorb the entry-level work that once gave graduates their start, that promise is beginning to fracture.”

Yahoo recently posted this: “In a low-hire job market, new grads need more than a high GPA”:

“Though the country’s labor picture has improved somewhat in recent months, with the unemployment rate hovering around a relatively low 4.3 percent despite little job growth, young people still undoubtedly have to fight for work. Junior-level job postings are down, those out of work are staying unemployed for longer, and even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently acknowledged that people without a position ‘will have a hard time breaking in unless somebody quits their job,’ which workers broadly aren’t doing.”

And back in April, I wrote a post covering “The Great Stay: Why Tech Talent Is Choosing Stability Over Salary.”

HELP FOR GRADUATES

There is plenty of great advice for new graduates. Here are a few of those recent pieces with updated recommendations:

KelloggInsight: “AI Is Wiping Out Entry-level Jobs. Here’s How to Surf the Wave and Not Get Crushed by It.”

“On what should new-workforce hopefuls focus? At the risk of stating the obvious, they should focus on the capabilities AI cannot replicate. 

“This includes relationship-building and its many subsidiary skills: the ability to listen deeply and synthesize what you’ve heard in multiple different offline conversations into something actionable; the ability to negotiate, facilitate a difficult conversation, or tell a compelling story; the ability to exercise judgment when the data is ambiguous; and the ability to read a room or tell an (appropriate) joke.”

Forbes: “10 Trends Driving The Job Market 2026 Graduates Need To Know”

1. “Skills-Based Hiring Is Replacing Degree Inflation”
2. “AI Is Flattening Organizations”
3. “Human Skills Are Becoming More Valuable”
4. “Entry-Level Workers Are Facing A Tougher Market”
5. “‘Ghost Jobs’ Are Distorting The Market”
6. “Employees Are ‘Job Hugging’”
7. “Hybrid Work Has Become The Default—But More Structured”
8. “AI ‘Coworkers’ Are Becoming Normal”
9. “Burnout And Mental Health Remain Central”
10. “Purpose And ‘Meaning-Maxxing’ Are Rising”

Dice: “Cybersecurity Careers: Advice for Grads Navigating an AI-Driven Job Market”

“At the same time, however, there are signs of life within the U.S. job market for recent graduates. The Wall Street Journal reported that the National Association of Colleges and Employers expects organizations to increase new-graduate hires by 5.6 percent this year compared to 2025. Other research showed that unemployment among those ages 20 to 24 has recently dropped and that some high-tech firms, such as IBM, are planning on hiring more college and university graduates this spring.

“These numbers indicate that recent grads can still find work in their chosen field, especially in areas such as cybersecurity, where there remains a significant need for talent. Within the cyber market, there are more than 500,000 open positions listed by private firms and government agencies within the U.S., with about half requiring a bachelor’s degree.

“One significant issue hanging over this is the use of AI and how much these technologies will play a role in reshaping the roles of cybersecurity professionals.

“While many organizations are attempting to leverage AI to assist in areas such as security operations centers (SOCs), which can affect entry-level roles, industry insiders continue to see a need for a workforce that is knowledgeable about what these technologies can do, how they fit into the broader business strategy, and how to deploy them effectively to increase security while reducing risk.”

And the YouTube video below also makes some great points about underemployed graduates. It also offers some interesting tips to consider in what Hanna says is a “random” job market for new grads. (Hint: One is getting a referral from someone at the company or government you are targeting. Another idea is getting a “bridge job.”)

THE OTHER PERSPECTIVE

Meanwhile, there are also several contrarian pieces that have been released in the past month. For example, “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says AI won’t kill entry-level jobs. He’s hiring 1,000 new grads to prove it”:

“There’s a growing number of business leaders and AI experts who say the AI jobpocalypse is nothing but a fantasy, and none other than Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sits in that camp. While AI challenges the economics of software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms like Salesforce—whose stock price is down over 31 percent from a year ago as of Monday morning—in a recent post on X, the billionaire said his company is hiring 1,000 new grads and interns to build its AI systems.

“‘We’re hiring 1,000 new grads & interns right now to ride the AI exponential,’ the post read. ‘You are right they said AI would kill entry-level jobs. Meanwhile these grads and interns are building it—powering Agentforce & Headless360 at Salesforce,’ he said of the company’s agentic AI platforms.”

MSN-Moneywise writes: “Indeed CEO says retiring boomers are a bigger threat to the economy than AI — and the worker shortage is already at your front door”:

“It comes down to who’s working and who isn’t — at least, according to Indeed CEO Hisayuki ‘Deko’ Idekoba. He says that as a large share of the U.S. workforce is nearing retirement, there aren’t enough younger workers stepping in to replace them. The result isn’t a simple worker shortage. It’s a mismatch, where some jobs are crowded with applicants while others are sitting open.”

FINAL THOUGHTS

As I travel the country, I hear regular stories from baby boomer and Gen X government employees who are worried about their new college graduate children who are trying to find tech jobs. At the same time, for those who have been able to work as interns or work summers or part time in college gaining hands-on skills using their technology, the opportunities seem to be more available.

The clear message is to get practical experience as soon as possible.

I also encourage new graduates to apply for state and local government jobs and lower their expectations for starting salaries. Instead, focus on getting practical skills that will set you up for a long career. This was the approach I used when I landed my first job after college at the National Security Agency.

Daniel J. Lohrmann is an internationally recognized cybersecurity leader, technologist, keynote speaker and author.