The U.S. labor market is holding steady despite extraordinary economic upheaval. But it is a bad time to be a job seeker—especially if you are young.⁠ ⁠ Recent college and high-school graduates are facing an employment crisis. The overall national unemployment rate remains around 4%, but for new college graduates looking for work, it is much higher: 6.6% over the past 12 months ending in May. That is about the highest level in a decade—excluding the pandemic unemployment spike—and up from 6% for the 12-month period a year earlier.⁠ ⁠ That rate, based on data from the Labor Department, applies to people ages 20 to 24 looking for work who have at least a bachelor’s degree. (This group is mostly people 21 to 24, since few people graduate college sooner.)⁠ ⁠ Young graduates typically face a higher unemployment rate than their counterparts who have been in the workforce longer, but the gap is growing wider between older workers and the young. Those ages 35 to 44 with bachelor’s degrees had a 2.2% unemployment rate over the past 12 months, though that was up from 1.8% over the prior period.⁠ ⁠ The culprit, economists say, is a general slowdown in hiring. That hasn’t really hurt people who already have jobs, because layoffs, too, have remained low, but it has made it much harder for people who don’t have work to find employment. That includes everyone looking for work, but especially recent grads trying to land that first real job.⁠ ⁠ Read more at the link in our bio.