Gen Z Grads Hit by Harsh Job Reality as AI Shifts the Market
So let’s talk about something that’s hitting close to home for a lot of people right now—especially if you're in your early 20s, just out of college, and expected to walk straight into a job. Turns out, that storybook ending isn’t happening for many recent graduates anymore. And the reason? It’s not just the economy—it's artificial intelligence.
You’ve probably heard people say that AI will “take our jobs,” but for a lot of Gen Z grads, that’s not some distant fear anymore. It’s happening now. Job listings for entry-level corporate positions have dropped by about 15%, while competition has skyrocketed—applications per job are up 30%. That means for every role you're applying to, there are way more people in line, all just as qualified, all just as eager.
Now think about that for a second. These aren’t just any jobs—these are the first rungs on the ladder. The roles that used to be your way into the workforce. But AI is incredibly good at repetitive tasks—think data entry, scheduling, basic analysis—and those are the very responsibilities that used to be handed to new hires. So companies are automating instead of hiring.
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It’s created this kind of “Gen Z divide.” If you graduated in 2021 or 2022, during the Great Resignation when companies were desperate to hire, you probably landed a job quickly and started your career with some momentum. But if you’re graduating now, you’re stepping into a completely different landscape. The unemployment rate for college grads aged 22 to 27 is now hovering around 6.6%, compared to the national rate of 4%. That’s a big gap.
Take Michael Macaluso—he got a mechanical engineering degree, applied to 200 jobs, and still ended up working at a pool club. Or Jahanvi Shah, who graduated from Cornell with a master’s degree and applied to over 500 jobs before she finally got hired. It’s not about qualifications anymore. It’s about timing, and how AI is reshaping what employers need.
This doesn't mean there’s no hope. It just means the rules of the game have changed. Now, new grads are being told they need to skill up in AI to stay competitive. And while that’s frustrating—especially for people who already spent years and thousands of dollars on a degree—it might just be the reality of the market going forward.
In a twist of irony, this whole situation is forcing us to re-evaluate the dream of the white-collar path. For decades, we’ve pushed young people toward college degrees, assuming that a desk job was more secure than anything in the trades. But now, with AI hitting the entry-level white-collar workforce, some are arguing it might be time to seriously consider skilled trades again—careers where human hands and creativity can’t be so easily replaced by code.
So yeah, Gen Z is resilient, but this chapter? It’s rough. And we owe it to this generation to stop pretending that the old roadmap still works. Because right now, a lot of young people feel like they did everything right—and are still getting left behind.
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