Companies Predict 2026 Will Be the Worst College Grad Job Market in Five Years

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Employers have a warning for the Class of 2026: Next spring’s graduate-hiring market is likely to be even worse than this year’s.

Six months out from graduation season, more than half of 183 employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers rate the job market for the Class of 2026 as poor or fair. That is the most pessimistic outlook since the first year of the pandemic, according to the survey, which is widely seen as an early signal of graduate hiring each year.

A cooling job market is darkening that outlook. In recent months, employers from Amazon.com to United Parcel Service have revealed plans to cut thousands of jobs. The latest is Verizon Communications, which, according to people familiar with the matter, plans to cut 15,000 jobs over the next week in its largest reduction ever.

Companies say the uncertain economic outlook has pushed them to hire more conservatively, and many are giving priority to recruits with some experience as opposed to fresh-from-college graduates. More executives are also speaking openly about the potential of artificial intelligence to bring deep job cuts and take over more tasks that new graduates are traditionally tapped to do.

For college seniors, that means they are also competing against junior workers who have been recently laid off. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.8% in June, greater than overall unemployment that month and the highest June level for recent graduates in four years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis.

Overall, employers say they expect a 1.6% increase in hiring for the Class of 2026, down considerably from their plans for the Class of 2025 last fall, according to the semiannual survey. College recruiting for full-time jobs typically kicks off in the fall or earlier, and by the spring, employers have a clearer sense of where hiring will land. In recent years, employers have revised their spring plans downward from the fall survey.

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