Gen Z male college graduates are facing unemployment rates that match their non-college-educated counterparts.
Per the Financial Times, the unemployment rate for recent male graduates has risen from under five percent to seven percent over the last 12 months. Female graduates, however, have seen their joblessness level remain nearly unchanged.
In 2010, for comparison, men without a college education had unemployment rates over 15 percent, while college graduates had an unemployment rate around seven percent, Ed Source reported.
Many female graduates are going into healthcare, the Financial Times reported, a sector that continues to see rising employment. Of the 135,000 jobs filled by female graduates in the past 12 months, 50,000 of them were in the healthcare sector. This was “more than double the total number of additional jobs going to graduate men across all sectors over the same period,” the outlet reported.
The outlet noted that while some may blame the rise of AI, women are more likely to be affected by the rise of AI, writing, “If AI does start to displace junior white-collar roles on a significant scale, women’s much higher participation in higher education could leave them especially exposed.”
This comes as the unemployment rate for the US was 4.1 percent in June, with 147,000 jobs being added to the economy, many of which were in state government or healthcare. The healthcare sector saw 39,000 jobs added in June, similar to the 43,000 average monthly job gains over the past 12 months. Hospitals saw an addition of 16,000 jobs, while nursing and residential care facilities added 14,000 jobs.
