The answer is literally right there in front of the two WP writers. Will they reach the right conclusion?
Why the U.S. job market is so hard, especially for recent college graduates
The American job market is behaving in a way that economists are struggling to explain. The economy is growing. Unemployment is low. And yet, for millions of workers, finding a job has become harder than at almost any other point in decades.
Amanda Munro, 32, followed every rule she had been taught. She earned a graduate degree, cultivated expertise in data science and environmental policy, and began establishing a track record as a policymaker, negotiating line by line with foreign governments over rules designed to protect sharks and rays on the high seas. When she was laid off last year as part of the federal cuts imposed by the U.S. DOGE Service, she expected to find another job quickly. Instead, she ended the year sorting packages in a warehouse in Portland, Oregon, earning $19 an hour. “It feels like the rules changed,” she said.
The struggle is felt across the U.S. workforce, but for the millions of students graduating this spring, it arrives at the worst possible moment.
A government worker bee who surely thinks she’s better than everyone else, who focused on the enviro-weenie policy part, who fancies herself a bigwig in policy and knows people in other countries, and is now finding it hard to get something comparable in the private sector? Huh. It’s almost like all that schooling and experience is not worth much.
Layoffs remain low by historical standards, but they vary widely across sectors. “In some narrow sectors, certainly tech and media included, it is low hire and some fire,” Ullrich said.
They’re replacing workers with AI, along with realizing they do not need that many employees. Plus, they do not need all the super-woke Millennials and Gen Z, people who have low work skills, low work motivation, and are pains in the ass to work with.
Another reason hiring has slowed is uncertainty about artificial intelligence. Even though the technology has not yet replaced large numbers of workers, it is already shaping how companies think about hiring. “I don’t think this is AI displacement,” said Ben Zweig, chief executive of Revelio Labs, a workforce data company. “What we’re seeing is anticipatory.” Instead of rushing to bring on new workers, some firms are waiting to see how the technology evolves and which tasks it will eventually take over.
Well, at least the WP notices that.
AI is also reshaping the hiring process itself. Recruiters say they are being overwhelmed with applications, many generated by AI, making it harder to identify strong candidates. “Everyone knows it’s a problem,” Zweig said. “We’re getting flooded.”
The yutes are taking the easy route for their applications, and it shows.
Samantha Gilstrap, 28, graduated from journalism school in 2019 and has barely caught her breath since. She entered the job market as the pandemic began, later lost a digital reporting job at WUSA9 during industry consolidation, and has since applied for hundreds of jobs. Most applications have led nowhere. “The only times I’ve been able to interact with humans is if it’s a who-you-know basis,” she said. She is now couch surfing to save money. “At some point, if things don’t work out, I will be walking into the nearest McDonald’s.”
If she didn’t graduate from a big-time journalism school, good luck, because the big outlets are full of these Elites. Couple that with local outlets slowly dying when it comes to news gathering (a much longer conversation), and the jobs dry up.
Her experience reflects a broader pattern among recent graduates. The unemployment rate for people ages 22 to 27 who recently completed college hit 5.6 percent in the final months of 2025 — well above the 4.2 percent rate for all workers, according to national data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Nearly half of that age group was underemployed, meaning people were working in jobs that did not require a degree, the highest share since 2020.
Well, so many are getting worthless degrees, ones that have little to no value in the private workplace, and might even be detrimental to getting a job, because even hardcore Progressive companies do not want annoying wackjobs with degrees ending in Studies causing problems. They’d rather hire older people who just get the work done.
Christine Beck, a career coach who works with early-career job seekers, said employers are asking more of the people they do hire. “Companies are trying to do more with less,” she said, pointing to a growing emphasis on candidates who can lead projects and expand an organization’s capacity without adding headcount.
That’s almost always been the case, and they really cannot depend on the Yutes to get this done. They do not like to do the work they’re told to do, much less go above and beyond.
Munro, the ocean policy expert, spent her months working in the warehouse alongside a former graphic designer and an ex-IT contractor whose job with the Forest Service had ended when his contract ran out, each with their own version of the same story.
In January, she was rehired by the federal government. The return brought relief, but did not erase her fear that the ground was still shifting.
In other words, the only place so many have any value is in being government drones. And the WP missed the point that all this high end education does not provide real skills.
Read: Washington Post Seems Surprised That People With Few Private Sector Skills Having Trouble Getting Jobs »
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