Heads up, students: This popular major has one of the highest unemployment rates, despite its fame

More and more, recent college graduates are entering the workforce in a less-than-ideal labor market.

Journalist Brian Merchant explored trends in the business sector that are shrinking company workforces through increased reliance on AI, in a recent post published on his Substack.

Merchant references reporting by Derek Thompson, whose piece in The Atlantic was published in early May, found that the unemployment rate among college graduates has been trending upward in recent years. Though some of the increase can be attributed to the pandemic, which limited the mobility of younger workers to migrate to economic centers, many of those barriers have been lifted. What the data shows is a more persistent force in the labor market that is hampering entry, even for degree holders in what have often been pointed to as high demand STEM fields.

In an interview on The Majority Report with Sam Seder, Merchant explained that recent graduates are typically among the most employable workers in the labor market.

“Recent college grads [...] are typically among the most employable demographic. They are young, they are ambitious, they are educated, and they are willing to work for relatively cheap,” said Merchant.

However, the data suggests that this historical trend is shifting. As more firms integrate AI into their operations, younger workers, often lacking relevant work experience, may find it harder to compete.

Even STEM degree holders are facing challenges in getting hired

While some degrees still lead to quicker job placement, others that once seemed like safe bets are proving less secure. Computer science, for example, remains in demand, but recent layoffs in the tech sector have affected even programmers, as companies experiment with replacing them using AI.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks unemployment rates by undergraduate degree. Among the top ten degrees with the highest joblessness rates, computer science ranks 7th, and computer engineering 3rd.

That said, computer-related degree holders still tend to earn higher median salaries than their peers in other fields. This suggests that while jobs are competitive, they are generally better compensated. However, if AI continues to eliminate roles in the field, salaries could decline as once-scarce skills lose value in an oversaturated job market.

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