Is it harder for college graduates to find a job in 2026? What the data shows

Fewer entry-level postings, fewer entry-level hires and rising graduate numbers. The 2026 data on the entry-level market, what AI is changing, and what a parent can do about it.

LevelUp career guides · Updated November 12, 2026 · 7 min read

Is it harder for college graduates to find a job in 2026?

Yes. By the three measures that track the entry-level market most closely, a new graduate faces a tougher search in 2026 than graduates did a few years ago. Fewer entry-level jobs are being posted, fewer people are being hired into entry-level roles, and the number of new graduates is projected to keep rising.

Employers still hire at the entry level. According to Indeed's Hiring Lab, entry-level roles make up 46% of all job postings. Rising graduate numbers and falling entry-level postings mean more competition for each of those openings.

How many entry-level jobs are employers posting?

Fewer than at their 2022 peak. Indeed's Hiring Lab reported in July 2026 that entry-level postings in May were 7.5% lower than a year earlier and have been falling since their 2022 peak. Postings for senior roles rose 14.7%. Indeed describes this as a labor market tilting toward seniority.

For a family, that shift explains a common complaint. Your graduate sees plenty of jobs advertised and finds few they qualify for, because a larger share of what is advertised is aimed at people with several years of experience.

Are companies hiring fewer new graduates?

LinkedIn's Grad's Guide 2026 found entry-level hiring down 6% from the year before. The same report found that 44% of Gen Z say lacking the right network is their biggest barrier to an entry-level role. That second figure points to something a parent can help with, and we return to it below.

The New York Fed adds a second measure. Besides the 5.6% of recent graduates who were unemployed in the second quarter of 2026, 42% were underemployed, working in jobs that do not typically need a degree. For many families this is the larger worry, because a graduate in a stopgap job often stays at that level for years. Our guide on how many college graduates are underemployed covers what the research says about the first ten years.

The figures for large technology companies show a steeper drop. SignalFire's State of Talent report from May 2025 found new graduates make up 7% of Big Tech hires, down more than 50% since 2019. That figure covers large technology companies only, and it matters most if your student is set on software or a large tech employer.

Why are more graduates competing for each job?

The number of new bachelor's graduates is near a record and still rising. About 2.0 million people earned a bachelor's degree as their highest award in 2024-25, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The National Center for Education Statistics projects about 2.27 million bachelor's degrees in 2026-27 and 2.32 million in 2027-28. NCES projections have run slightly high in the past, so read them as an upper bound. The direction holds either way.

You may have read about the demographic cliff. WICHE reports that the number of US high-school graduates peaked in 2025 at about 3.9 million and will fall 13% by 2041. Those smaller classes reach college graduation around 2029 to 2031, so they do nothing to ease competition for the Classes of 2026, 2027 and 2028.

No US source publishes a ratio of graduates to graduate jobs for 2027 or 2028. If you see one quoted, treat it with caution. The defensible statement is the direction: supply of graduates keeps rising while entry-level demand has been falling.

Is AI taking entry-level jobs?

The research points to an effect in some roles, concentrated on young workers. The Stanford Digital Economy Lab studied ADP payroll data and found that employment of 22 to 25 year olds in AI-exposed jobs is 19% below where it would be had it tracked their peers in less exposed jobs. Experienced workers in the same jobs showed no comparable drop. The paper also finds no economy-wide displacement.

The finding covers workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed jobs, the age group most new graduates fall into. The skills employers already say are scarce in new graduates are the ones built on dealing with people. In NACE's Job Outlook 2025 employer survey, 96.1% of employers rated communication as important, and only 53.5% said new graduates are proficient at it. A graduate who can explain their work clearly and hold a good conversation with a stranger is building the skill employers report missing.

Is there any good news for the Class of 2026?

Some. In its spring 2026 update, NACE reported that employers plan a median 5.6% increase in hiring from the Class of 2026. That figure reflects the plans of 185 large NACE member employers, while Indeed and LinkedIn measure what happened across the wider market, where the figures moved the other way.

Sales is one field with a large and steady number of openings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 1.67 million openings a year in sales and related occupations from 2025 to 2035. Total employment in those jobs is roughly flat, so most of the openings come from people moving on. If your student is open to it, our guide on how to get an entry-level sales job explains how those roles are filled.

What does a harder market mean for how my student searches?

It means applications alone carry low odds. Ashby, a recruiting software company, studied applications across its customers. Candidates who applied cold reached an interview 3% of the time. Candidates referred by someone inside the company reached one 40% of the time, and 16% of referred candidates received an offer, against 6% of cold applicants.

A graduate who sends a hundred online applications and holds no conversations is relying on the odds of a cold applicant. Spending part of each week talking to people in the field, asking for advice and for introductions, creates the chance of a referral.

The search itself rewards the skills employers say are missing. Asking a stranger for twenty minutes, following up without being a nuisance, and explaining in an interview what you did and why it mattered are communication skills. Your student can practise them before they need them.

What can a parent do to help in this market?

Your graduate runs the search, and a parent can help in five specific ways.

• Start earlier than feels necessary. Internships and campus roles give a student experience to talk about and people who can vouch for them. If your student is a sophomore or junior, our guide on how to get a summer internship lays out the timing.
• Offer your network. The LinkedIn and Ashby figures above both point to referrals. Offer two or three introductions to people you know in fields your student is considering, and let your student write the message and lead the conversation.
• Ask about activity. "How many conversations did you have this week?" is a question your graduate can answer and act on. A weekly question about news is harder to answer and gives them less to act on.
• Plan the stopgap job. If your graduate takes work below their level to earn money, agree how many hours a week still go to the search and set a date to review it together.
• Keep the data in proportion. Use the figures in this guide as context, and agree a weekly plan together.

Your checklist for this week

• Ask your student how many people they have spoken to about the jobs they want, outside of applications.
• Write down five people you know who work in fields your student is considering, and offer to introduce two of them.
• Look at three job postings together for the role your student wants, and note how many ask for experience they do not yet have.
• Agree one weekly target for conversations, separate from the number of applications sent.
• Take the Hireability Scorecard together to see which skills employers test that your student should work on first.