即便未陷入衰退，高利率、关税变动与生成式AI快速进展仍造成低聘雇、低解雇的市场格局。2025年，初阶职位占美国职缺比例为74%，低于2009年的79%。医疗保健是少数亮点：2024年约有1.9百万个入门职缺，但2014年至2024年医疗相关毕业人数仅增5%。相比之下，电脑与资讯科学领域入门职缺仅增约6%，却出现110%的毕业人数暴增，且多笔裁员虽被标示为AI导向，亦出现「AI washing」争议。
29岁的Cody Viscardis是典型例子：他在2023年毕业于McNeese State University后送出近1,000份求职信，仅收到6场年薪至少6万美元的面试；他先后做过最低时薪工作，后接到时薪23美元、再到工会电工最高63美元的工作，并在每周50至60小时工时下完成线上研究所课程，仍期待转回软体工程。超过1,000所学校已向Lightcast咨询调整主修与招生，但协调仍不充分；斯坦福报告其本学年秋、冬季CS报名比去年同期下降近10%。2018年纽约联邦储备研究所指出，大衰退后多数人可在约5年内转入需学历职位，因此 underemployed 状态常具有暂时性。
Underemployed grads are workers who hold a college degree but are in jobs below their credential level. In Dec 2025, 43% of US graduates age 22–27 were underemployed, up by more than 3 percentage points from the previous year and the highest since the pandemic. AI is often blamed for automating entry-level white-collar work in software development, customer service, and marketing, but the bigger issue is mismatch: from 2004 to 2024, college completions rose 54% while suitable entry-level jobs rose only 42%. In 22 of 35 fields, jobs per graduate declined over 20 years, and similar spikes occurred in 1992 and 2012–2015, when around half of recent grads were also underemployed.
Even without a recession, high interest rates, tariff shifts, and rapid generative-AI progress have created a low-hire, low-fire labor market. In 2025, entry-level roles were 74% of US job openings, down from 79% in 2009. Health care is a bright spot with about 1.9 million openings in 2024, but health-related completions rose only 5% from 2014 to 2024. By contrast, computer and information sciences saw entry-level openings rise about 6% while graduates rose 110%, and layoffs there have often been framed as AI-driven amid claims of “AI washing.”
Cody Viscardis, age 29, graduated from McNeese State in 2023, sent nearly 1,000 applications and got only six interviews for jobs paying at least $60,000. He worked minimum-wage jobs, then took an electrician job at $23/hour, now earning up to $63/hour, while studying for an online master’s during 50–60-hour workweeks, still aiming for software engineering. More than 1,000 schools consult Lightcast on major and enrollment adjustments, yet coordination remains uneven. Stanford reports fall/winter CS enrollment fell almost 10% from last year, while a 2018 New York Fed study says that after the Great Recession many grads can return to degree-required roles within about five years, so underemployment is often temporary.