2026 rough year for new college grads to find a job?

Excerpt from WSJ today. Looking bad for new college grads! Ouch!

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.