About That College Grad Who Can’t Find a Job…
Optimist Economy
Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
4.9 • 829 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Originally aired 7/1/2025) Newly minted college graduates are having a harder time landing that first job than in recent years. Is it AI? Is college useless? Is it a crisis? (No. No. And not yet…) College graduates under 27 still have significantly lower unemployment rates (5.8%) than high school graduates of the same age (6.9%). What economist Kathryn Edwards finds worrying is that these new workers, who are typically a lagging economic indicator, may in this case be a bellwether of a weakening economy.
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Complete show notes with links to articles and data at optimisteconomy.com.
You can also find Optimist Economy on:
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Read More:
- The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates [New York Fed, 2025]
- Hires, from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey [St. Louis Fed, 2025]
- Downskilling: changes in employer skill requirements over the business cycle [Labour Economics 2016]
- Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skill When Workers Are Plentiful? [The Review of Economics and Statistics 2020]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Frances Fry. And I'm Anne Morris. And we are the hosts of a new TED podcast called Fixable. |
| 0:06.4 | We've helped leaders at some of the world's most competitive companies solve all kinds of problems. |
| 0:12.0 | On our show, we'll pull back the curtain and give you the type of honest, unfiltered advice we usually reserve for top executives. |
| 0:19.1 | Maybe you have a coworker with boundary issues, or you want to |
| 0:22.4 | know how to inspire and motivate your team. No problem is too big or too small. Give us a call, |
| 0:27.7 | and we'll help you solve the problems you're stuck on. Find fixable wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:35.7 | Hi, Optimists. It's Robin. When we would have been recording a new episode for this week, Catherine was, it's Robin. |
| 0:42.5 | When we would have been recording a new episode for this week, Catherine was in Washington, D.C., testifying in front of the House Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on taxes. |
| 0:47.8 | We'll get the lowdown on how that went next week. |
| 0:50.7 | But meantime, our audio and video producers, Sophie and Andy, suggested that we |
| 0:55.3 | rerun this episode about youth unemployment. Indeed, it's graduation season, and my social media |
| 1:01.3 | feeds are full of people's kids and caps and gowns. I did check to make sure that the unemployment |
| 1:06.5 | situation hasn't changed that much since we originally recorded this episode. According to the New York |
| 1:12.3 | Federal Reserve, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates, that's people age 22 to 27 with a |
| 1:19.0 | college degree, is currently 5.6%. That's down slightly from 5.7% a year ago. And it is still lower than the unemployment rate for those without a |
| 1:30.7 | college degree. For all young workers in that age group, the unemployment rate is currently 7.2%. |
| 1:36.8 | This is also far from the worst it's ever been. In April 2010, coming out of the Great Recession, |
| 1:42.0 | the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was |
| 1:44.7 | 6.9%. Anyway, I think this episode holds up. If you're a recent grad or you know one, you can text |
| 1:51.5 | this episode to them from July 2025. Here's our episode titled About That College Grad who |
| 1:57.5 | can't find a job. |
| 2:09.6 | Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Catherine. I'm Robin. On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there one problem and solution |
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