One economist on AI and jobs
June Zaccone
Policy Uncertainty, Not "AI"-Automation, Is Almost Surely Behind the Bulk of Recent Graduates' Job Discontent Why are new college graduates finding it harder than usual to get a foot in the door, even as unemployment rates stay low? Do not (yet) focus on “AI”…Brad DeLong Jul 23, 2025
Whatever is making new college graduates these days think that their life is unusually difficult for their labor market segment, it is almost surely not “AI”. Amanda Mull:
Amanda Mull: What the Tough Job Market for New College Grads Says About the Economy <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-17/tough-job-market-for-new-college-grads-is-worrying-for-us-economy>: ‘Ernie Tedeschi… [says] hiring rates for new grads are… in line with the latter half of the 2010s…. “We still see low unemployment, and we do see pretty solid job gains,” says Allison Shrivastava, an economist at… Indeed…. But it… isn’t as lush as it was in the recent past…. [And] graduates in computer science, computer engineering and graphic design all have unemployment rates at 7% or greater…. Nathan Goldschlag… [says] the new-grad unemployment rate… “is low for things like accounting and business analytics, which… when you’re coming from the AI space… are ripe for automation”….
Stochastic uncertainty…. Companies are waiting as long as they can… in hopes of catching a glimpse of what tariffs and AI and inflation and anti-immigration policies will do to their business, which means many are delaying hiring. “Everything is just kind of stalled out and frozen,” Shrivastava says…
