Unlock the Editor’s Digest without cost
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly e-newsletter.
New US faculty graduates are struggling to search out jobs as companies cut back hiring plans due to financial uncertainty, in what economists warned could possibly be an early signal of bother for the broader labour market.
Job postings on scholar and graduate recruitment platform Handshake had been down 15 per cent between July 2024 and mid-April 2025, in contrast with the identical interval within the earlier tutorial 12 months.
Internships, a typical entry level to the workforce for latest graduates, had been additionally marketed on employment web site Certainly on the slowest tempo because the top of the Covid-19 pandemic, in response to figures shared with the Monetary Instances.
The slowdown in graduate recruitment could possibly be an early signal of bother for the broader labour market, warned James Knightley, chief worldwide economist at ING.
“The very first thing to go is the entry-level hiring,” he mentioned.
The financial uncertainty and inventory market jitters triggered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping commerce levies on a few of the US’s most essential buying and selling companions have slowed many firms’ hiring plans — exacerbating an already cool job marketplace for entry-level candidates.
Employers polled by the Nationwide Affiliation of Schools and Employers final August and September predicted that they might rent 7.3 per cent extra graduates this 12 months than in 2024. By this March, nonetheless, the estimate was slashed to simply 0.6 per cent.
Consulting large EY delayed begin dates for brand new graduates employed by its US technique and deal advisory enterprise due to “unsure and evolving market situations”.
Unemployment amongst faculty graduates aged 22 to 27 climbed to five.8 per cent in March, from 4.8 per cent in January, in accordance the Federal Reserve Financial institution of New York’s evaluation of the Present Inhabitants Survey. The general US unemployment price held regular at 4 per cent.
Man Berger, director of financial analysis on the non-profit Burning Glass Institute, mentioned the labour market was “freezing” as companies concurrently made fewer hires and fewer job cuts, making it more durable for early-career staff to interrupt into the labour power.
“People who have already got jobs are comparatively insulated,” he mentioned. “Individuals in search of jobs are going through a a lot more durable setting.”
The month-to-month hiring price — the variety of new hires as a proportion of total employment — was 3.4 per cent within the first three months of 2025, the slowest for that interval in additional than a decade, in response to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The federal authorities hiring freeze applied on Trump’s first day in workplace and prolonged till July has additionally blocked some common profession paths for graduating college students. Furthermore, many skilled federal staff axed by Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity are competing with new graduates for a shrinking pool of alternatives.
College students looking for to rearrange jobs forward of commencement had been making use of to extra positions and experiencing lengthier recruitment processes as hiring managers had been “further cautious” in contrast with latest years, mentioned Cindy Meis, director of undergraduate profession companies on the College of Iowa’s Tippie Faculty of Enterprise.
“In case you’re making an attempt to enter the labour market, then it’s a really irritating time,” mentioned Allison Shrivastava, an economist on the Certainly Hiring Lab.
