Graduating in the age of AI

My wife’s niece (my niece-in-law?) graduated from college in the US this year. She is part of the first cohort that had AI available during their entire time at university. And she is graduating into an absolutely brutal job market, thanks in no small part to AI.

Recently, I wrote a post about how the proliferation of AI will, in my view and according to some early evidence, not lead to widespread job losses. Instead, Jevons’ Paradox ensures that AI will be a net job creator. But that doesn’t mean that these new jobs will be created equally across industries and age groups. And while it is still early days (I emphasise this all the time because things are very much in flux), a new analysis by Lee Tucker from the US Census Bureau indicates that one group of people is losing in the job market: Recent university graduates.

He tracked the employment situation for US citizens across industries and age groups since the advent of ChatGPT in 2023.

My first chart today shows the change in employment among people aged 22 to 24 (i.e, people at the start of their career) since the end of 2022, sorted by the AI exposure of industries. The dark blue line indicates the 20% industries that are most disrupted by AI. These are obviously IT, but also finance, insurance and professional services (Law, HR, Accounting, etc.). Clearly, this is where employment has declined, while employment has grown in industries that are least affected by AI (Agriculture, construction, tourism, etc.).

Employment by AI exposure, ages 22-24

Source: Tucker (2026)

To check if this is a general trend across all age groups or just among young people starting out, we can look at the second chart, which shows the change in employment across age groups in those industries that are most disrupted by AI (i.e. the dark blue line in the previous chart). More experienced people did not see a decline in employment, while younger ones clearly did.

Employment by age in industries most disrupted by AI

Source: Tucker (2026)

We can even go a level deeper and look at the change in employment by individual industry for people aged 22 to 24. Again, the main culprits are the tech industry, financial services, and professional services. Agriculture also shows up, but that is likely just part of a secular decline in employment in this sector that has been going on for decades.

Change in employment for 22- to 24-year-olds by industry

Source: Tucker (2026)

One word of caution, though. Tucker also shows that the decline in employment may not only be due to the advent of AI alone. Some of these trends already started with the pandemic and were simply accelerated by AI. But at the very least, AI didn’t help young professionals trying to find a first job.