Graduates in the class of 2026 are navigating an unusually choppy labor market. We talked to three fresh grads about their post-grad experience so far.
Transcript
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Summer break is when college students can finally exhale after a long school year. But if they just wrapped up their final year in school, they might still be holding their breath. Graduates in the class of 2026 are navigating an unusually weak labor market, where unemployment for young workers, age 22 to 27, has risen at nearly double the rate of the rise in overall unemployment. That’s according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute over the last three years. The National Association of Colleges and Employers found that less than half of the class of 2026 graduated with a job.
Some are working jobs that don’t require a college degree or internships that they really hope will turn into a job, or are just sitting out the job market for another few years with grad school. We wanted to hear from a few 2026 grads to see how they’re faring since walking across the stage, degree in hand.
AMBER CHERRY: My name’s Amber Cherry. I’m 22 years old, and I studied English, and then I had minors in film and tech, ethics and society. Right now, I’m working on a movie as a locations PA. So that’s basically just helping look over the different locations that we’ll be shooting and a lot of kind of grunt work, moving around traffic cones. And I think I get a fluorescent vest next week. So that’s what I’m doing for the next month.
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CHERRY: It’s hard for me to make plans because I have no plan. Plans with friends, traveling, et cetera – kind of hard to do when you don’t know when your next job might start up or if they’ll need you, like, on the spot, especially in the entertainment industry.
And so right now, I’m in Nashville, Tennessee, which is my hometown. Sometimes when I’m home, I start to revert back to the habits that I had when I lived here, you know, or, like, a little bit of my 17-year-old self starts to come out. I’ve kind of heard online or just in public discourse of, like, no one wants to work anymore, but that’s kind of all we want to do. Everyone I know is begging, like, please give me a job. And we’re not begging for, like, big jobs. We’re begging for entry-level jobs.
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CHERRY: I know a lot of people in my generation can be afraid to, like, call people, but we’ve had to get over that (laughter), even though that’s, like, the last thing my generation wants to do, is call someone on the phone.
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GABBY MATTHEWS: To me, it still feels like, you know, I’m going through the motions. Like, I’m still experiencing my summer. I think it’s really going to hit in August when everyone starts going back to school, and it’s like, OK, like, I’m genuinely working. Though I think, for me, it’s kind of just been a fever dream. I definitely enjoy knowing that I don’t have any more homework for a while.
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MATTHEWS: My name is Gabby Matthews. I studied business management, and I graduated from Howard University, class of 2026.
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MATTHEWS: I’m currently located in New Jersey, but I also, like, work in New York. So right now, I work within, like, the merchandising room, so I’m currently a buyer trainee. I have family that lives in New Jersey, luckily, so I’m commuting from a relative’s house, staying until I find something more permanent.
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MATTHEWS: The first thing we learned at Howard was the opportunities that you want are absolutely accessible to you, and you have to put the work in to get what you want out of it. Seeing my classmates, you know, get internships in their freshman and sophomore year is definitely something that inspired me to really work hard and be a go-getter and make sure I had something by at least junior year, you know, going to the job fairs. It got to a point I had an Excel sheet set up, and, like, just reflecting back on all the things that I applied to compared to what I even heard back from.
And then also just, like, the process of, like, hearing back and going through interviews, it can be very difficult. A lot of people weren’t able to get return offers – not only return offers, but, like, jobs. I know a lot of people going to grad school – like, a lot of people going to grad school – and the job market is absolutely crazy right now.
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ERICK AHUMADA: My name is Erick Ahumada. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in computer science.
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AHUMADA: I finally got a call back about a return offer for a probationary internship, so it’s not even full-time just yet. Like most people, I want a high-paying job – right? – that, you know, is stable. And computer science for a while, was, you know, toted to be that. Easily – you know, make six figures, have a stable, nice job. Out of my limited friend group, like 20-, 30%, you know, have that offer. Seventy percent are in this weird limbo where we’re kind of just waiting.
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AHUMADA: My family is willing to let me live with them, so it’s pretty tight. So my life has been pretty nice.
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AHUMADA: College life, I was really – I need to get this job, and nothing takes higher priority than getting this job. Now that I’m kind of on this probation period and, you know, on the track to get the job, I feel a lot more at ease. You know, I’ve been doing things I enjoy more, I guess, instead of doing, for example, LeetCode or interview prep, or, you know, catching up on whatever is the hype for gen AI technology.
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AHUMADA: Given the field and what I’m working on specifically, like, I’m very much so getting exposed every day, like, oh, yeah, they could for sure fire me today. I did go into mathematics ’cause I thought that would be safe, but my truly honest-to-God major I wanted to do was psychology. I genuinely really loved the classes I took, and I was hoping to do that for bachelor’s. But even with how horrible it is now, I think I appreciate the fact that I could get a job at all.
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RASCOE: Voices from the class of 2026 – that was Amber Cherry in Nashville, Gabriella-Ann Matthews in New Jersey, and Erick Ahumada (ph) in Los Angeles, California. Their stories were produced by Dhanika Louise Pineda.
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Dhanika Pineda 2026-07-26 11:58:26
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