The job market of 2026 looks incredibly normal for recent graduates.
The job market of 2026 looks incredibly normal for recent graduates.
Credit: CESifo
At the base level, the summer unemployment rate for young college graduates in 2026 (7.3 percent) was within the range seen in previous years (from 6.3 percent in 2022 to 7.8 percent in 2024). The 2026 numbers were also unremarkable when expanded to include graduates who said in the CPS survey that they “want a job” even though they were not actively looking for one (and therefore do not officially count as part of the official “unemployed” workforce).
To test the robustness of these findings, the researchers created statistical tests to compare recent college graduates with non-college graduates in the same age range and with older college graduates (ages 30 to 49). They also broke down employment by potential “AI exposure” based on a 2023 study of which job functions AI systems were best equipped for.
In almost all comparisons, any trend differences between groups in the period studied from 2022 to 2026 were not statistically significant. Overall, the data “tells a consistent story that unemployment among recent college graduates in the summer of 2026 was not unusually high compared to previous summers” across all comparison groups, the researchers wrote.
So how does this analysis square with the recent Stanford study that found an almost completely opposite result? Well, the Stanford study relied on payroll data from human resources firm ADP, which covers a decent cross-section of the economy but might miss some elements of a broader Census survey. The ADP data also looks at the total supply of jobs in various fields, while the unemployment rate studied here also takes into account the aggregate demand for those jobs. That demand could easily change even if the supply of jobs in certain fields begins to contract due to AI.
Overall, CESifo researchers conclude that the summer 2026 unemployment data serves as a “useful first test” of how accelerated the use of AI is, or, as the data shows, No—Impacting the current US labor market. But current trends do not imply future performance, of course, and the researchers warn that “if the intensity of AI use in the workplace continues to increase, the Classes of 2027 and beyond could be more affected than the Class of 2026, and additional years of data will be needed to determine whether effects emerge as AI use in the workplace deepens.”
