New College Grads Face One of the Toughest Job Markets in Years

New college graduates are confronting one of the toughest entry-level hiring environments in years, according to a report from The New York Times.

Entry-level hiring dropped 6% between December 2025 and February 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to LinkedIn data reported this month. Entry-level job listings on Indeed also declined 7% last year compared to 2024, the company reported in an analysis published last week.

“As a job seeker, you’re having to work a lot harder to land that same job now because the competition has just really stiffened in the last couple years,” Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed, told the Times. 

These dynamics have turned the job hunt into a grueling struggle for many new graduates. In interviews and survey responses to the Times, several soon-to-be and recent college degree holders reported submitting more than 100 job applications without landing a single initial interview. 

College graduates are lowering their expectations

The difficult search has pushed many graduates to rethink their post-college trajectories. Some have taken positions serving tables at pizzerias, making drinks at coffee shops or working other roles that don’t demand a degree. Others are enrolling in graduate school to sidestep the tough job market entirely. Landing a position in your chosen field used to be the standard expectation after graduation — now, securing any paycheck has become the priority, reports the Times. 

“I’m, like, is it me or is it really the market right now?” Natalia Martinez, 24, a senior at the University of Central Florida, told the outlet. “I just feel like it’s so hard for somebody to take a chance on a college graduate.”

Martinez has applied to 150 jobs since February for receptionist or medical assistant positions, but she has not heard back from any of them. She now looks for roles on LinkedIn and Indeed until late in the night, mentally preparing to move back home with her parents if nothing materializes by graduation. 

“I feel like I’m doing everything that I possibly can,” she told the Times. “I just want some kind of path.”

AI is shaking up hiring

Concerns are also mounting that AI will permanently eliminate traditional entry-level positions, as companies increasingly use the technology to handle routine work previously assigned to junior employees. 

AI is already taking over tasks at big tech companies. For example, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal last year that the tech giant had replaced several hundred human resources employees with AI. IBM’s total workforce grew despite the cuts — the company channeled the savings into hiring additional software engineers and salespeople. 

“Our total employment has actually gone up, because what [AI] does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas,” Krishna told the Journal.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted last year that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to rise to 20%.

“On the jobs side of this [AI], I do have a fair amount of concern,” Amodei said at a Council on Foreign Relations event, per Business Insider.

New college graduates are confronting one of the toughest entry-level hiring environments in years, according to a report from The New York Times.

Entry-level hiring dropped 6% between December 2025 and February 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to LinkedIn data reported this month. Entry-level job listings on Indeed also declined 7% last year compared to 2024, the company reported in an analysis published last week.

“As a job seeker, you’re having to work a lot harder to land that same job now because the competition has just really stiffened in the last couple years,” Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed, told the Times.