Historically, college graduates, recently matriculated or old alums, were more likely to be employed than all workers combined. However, beginning in 2015, as the labor market data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows in the graph below, unemployment rates for recent college graduates and all workers were in relatively tight competition until October 2018, when new grads began experiencing higher unemployment rates than all workers—a position they have held ever since. Might it have something to do with the degrees students are earning and changes in the job market?
The new Fed Labor Market report also posts outcomes by major for college graduates as of 2024. The webpage includes unemployment, underemployment, early and mid-career wages, and the percent of workers with graduate degrees. More than half of the graduates in 17 different majors were likely to be underemployed in 2024, according to the site. Recent grads with anthropology, computer engineering, or fine arts majors have experienced the highest unemployment rates, all at or exceeding 7.7%. Computer science and physics weren’t far behind at 7.0% and 6.6%, respectively.