I understand the pessimism as well. And I’m trying hard to understand what’s different now vs. the recession I graduated into “way back when” where we all struggled to just “get a job any job” and were mostly satisfied with whatever awful or boring or whatever job we found as long as it meant we weren’t moving back home with mom and dad!
Good question. I graduated in 1988 into a lousy economy and temped for 6 months before I got a job (which was boring but at a good company). I didn’t mind making lousy money and living in a dumpy apartment because I was with my friends (3 roommates). Maybe expectations are higher today. Obviously the state of the world is not the best either.
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I am a lot older than you but similar experience. A LOT of my friends were temping- back in the day when companies needed droves of data entry, filing, copy making. I had a real job (a management training program) but we were all expert at figuring out which happy hour served free “heavy hors d’oeuvres” so we could have dinner out on a budget. I was the only one of my crowd to have health insurance from work which was ironic since both my parents had Blue Cross and my coverage from them was very cheap.
Perhaps the dumpy apartment is more expensive now (adjusted for CPI inflation) than it was when people of parent age were renting it just after finishing school? Since 2/1981, rental housing is now 5.2 times as high, but CPI is only 3.75 times as high, so rental housing is 1.39 times as high in CPI-adjusted terms as it was in 2/1981. (Purchased housing has also increased in price faster than CPI.)
Also, given the demographics on these forums, new graduates who grew up in upper middle class environments may have expectations of living standards higher than their parents if their parents did not grow up in upper middle class environments.
Of course, medical insurance and medical care is much more expensive now than it was back then in CPI-adjusted terms.
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If it were fairly priced just using age health insurance for young people woud still be realatively cheap. That was the key to Ocare. Make the young pay for the old.
The historic trends are pictured above. A near record high portion of persons age 55+ say it is a good time to find a job, yet portion of persons age 15-34 saying it is a good time to find a job has come crashing down since 2023. From 2023 to 2025 the change was:
** Age Group . . . : 2023 → 2024 → 2025**
Persons Aged 55+ : 70% → 71% → 64%
Persons Aged 15-34: 70% → 55% → 43%
The poll is held in July, so I don’t think the primary reason for the July 2024 change is political. I suspect AI fears have a notable influence, which better aligns with the timing of the age 15-34 decline.
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What you’re hearing is partly true, but it needs a bit of context.
A lot of 2025 grads—especially in Computer Science and related fields—are finding the entry-level market more competitive than it was a few years ago. During the 2020–2022 hiring boom, companies were aggressively recruiting juniors, internships were plentiful, and even average candidates could land offers fairly quickly. That period set expectations pretty high.
Now the situation has cooled. Tech companies went through layoffs and hiring slowdowns, and many are being more selective. At the entry level, that shows up as:
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Fewer true “junior” openings
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More emphasis on internships or prior experience
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Higher bar even for new grad roles (leetcode-heavy, system design basics, projects, etc.)
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More applicants per role
That said, it’s not uniform across the board. Strong candidates with internships, solid projects, or niche skills (AI/ML, data engineering, cloud, cybersecurity) are still getting offers. And outside pure tech companies—finance, healthcare, manufacturing—CS grads are still being hired, just through different pipelines.
Compared to “previous years,” it’s probably fair to say:
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Worse than the 2021–2022 peak (definitely)
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More like a return to a normal or slightly tight market similar to pre-2020 cycles
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Still far from a “no jobs” situation—just less forgiving for entry-level
So overall: yes, it’s harder than the recent boom years, but not unusually bad in a historical sense. The difference is mostly that students today are competing in a more realistic market after a very inflated hiring period.
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IMO what may seem different to the twenty-somethings is that some in this group see these changes as being relatively more permanent. And I’m not just talking about the college grads in this age range, the perception of the job market changes/shift is part of what is causing some to not even go to college, especially males.
Of course, none of us really know how things are going to shake out…will new ‘good’ jobs be created as AI grows/becomes entrenched in many functions, or are we headed towards needing universal basic income, or something in between?
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A dumpy apartment in Boston/Allston/Newton etc. with 4 BRs (which is what we had) is about $4-5k per month. Back then it was about $1000. The cost of housing has far outpaced inflation so you are right about that. It is harder to move out on your own (even with multiple roommates) in this area - especially as earnings haven’t kept pace with the housing cost. I think young people today are pessimistic about getting ahead in a way that we weren’t and that may be driven by the high cost of living in many places - especially housing and healthcare.
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The 4 bedroom. apartment I shared with three friends in center city Philadelphia during and after college was $250 each and utilities. Today, studios average around $1700. In my suburban neighborhood, most recent college grads are back home. The apartment rental prices around here are outrageous.
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It’s even crazy in the suburbs - where I live now (20 miles outside Boston) an 1 BR apartment is $2500+ (granted, they are nice as they aren’t catering to the post graduate crowd).
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My son is three years out of college and despite having a good job cannot afford to move out. He doesn’t have any friends to share with so the choice is sharing with strangers which he doesn’t want to do, or a studio. Studios start at $2000. Landlords want income at 3x rent which is $72k. He makes $60 (poli sci/communications major). So here he is stuck at home. He’s saved a lot of money over the past few years but that doesn’t seem to matter to potential landlords.
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For many years H and I couldn’t afford to live close in to work and had not great commutes, but that’s what we needed to do to save money and stay within our budget. Our first apartment was in a basement, albeit a walk out situation. When we moved to bigger cities, we were always in the outer burbs because that’s what we could afford.
I’m going to sound like an old grouch but I don’t think kids need to have it all for their first apartment or first house. And at least in my friend group, the parents are part of the problem for unnecessarily subsidizing their adult, employed children so they can get a “nicer” place or the “perfect” location. We know people who are being subsidized into their 40s and 50s. IMO, it’s more important for young people to stand on their own two feet and learn to live within their means.
100% that work experience as an undergrad is becoming more and more important. But, has that really changed from when we were young? I worked through HS and college. Regular “normal” HS jobs and then more internship, research, and hands on stuff in college. My peer group did the same. That seemed necessary for grad school and jobs then too.
My first job out of grad school was also a short temp job. They offered me full time within a couple of weeks but the agency where I really wanted to work told me they thought they’d have their funding within the month so I told temp job (which I hated) that I needed to think about it. Thankfully the “real” job came through before my deadline to accept the ft temp job. I didn’t feel like I could take the time to just job hunt without an income of some kind. That mindset seems to not be a thing anymore either. I remain in the get A job camp, any job, while looking.
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Unfortunately, that seems pretty common these days. A lot of kids I know are still living at home because that is all they can afford/can qualify for. Back in the day landlords didn’t ask for any of that info - it was just first month/last month/security (granted, not always easy to come up with that chunk of $$).
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They didn’t need so much information- but they DID do credit checks which made it hard for graduating students who didn’t have a credit history. So finding a potential roommate who could qualify- very important!
Add me to the old grouch club. 
I don’t think it is a problem to live with roommates, to eat out less, and to stick with a budget. Learning to balance trade-offs is part and parcel of becoming a fully functioning adult, imo.
I lived with roommates until I got married. DH and I always have lived below our means which meant that our homes have never been the biggest, most updated versions. I’ve never had granite countertops (sorry House Hunters, lol). One of the things we always told our kids is the old saying, “fast, cheap, good - pick the two most important to you”.
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I’m an old grouch too.
But to get back to the original premise of this thread- and for parents who are panicking because their kid is working their HS job at the yogurt store this summer because the “fancy” internship didn’t pan out- it’s OK. It’s going to be OK. There are still kids getting jobs without having been a “big data analyst” for an impressive sounding company, or without having “created my own asset allocation model” at a private wealth management firm.
Experience is experience is experience. Which means getting up every morning to get to work on time is more valuable than sleeping in before heading down to the club to meet friends for lunch. It means volunteering for the local historical society which got a grant to digitize its collection is more valuable than making endless tik-toks unboxing high end shampoo.
Work is work, and employers value work experience. Whether it’s highly paid or not paid at all, impressive sounding or just manual labor- employers value it. So encourage your kids to cast a wide net, whether for a summer job (yes, collecting quarters out of the washing machines at the laundromat counts as a job, as does launching a dog-walking service) or a permanent position.
An enterprising college kid in my neighborhood is offering a “two shot” class for seniors. Class number 1 focuses on making video calls, logging in to zoom, sending emails to your grandkids, adding frequently called/emergency contacts to your phone. Class number 2 focuses on signing up for online billing, viewing your credit card payment history, staying safe on the internet with appropriate password protocols. His paying customers are NOT senior citizens, but their adult children who are tired of yelling at mom “move your head, we can’t see you” on the family Sunday night get together. One of my friends who signed up said “there is literally no fee too high if this guy can get my mom to enter the modern telecommunications era”.
Imagine telling a future interviewer (for any type of job) how you identified an underserved market, developed a product and a brand identity, and then hired your friends as instructors/facilitators because you quickly didn’t have enough capacity to handle your clients yourselves!!!
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this is not surprising yet the popular press is fueling the AI fear-mongering. Two trends: news as entertainment and lazy analysis about AI impact have added so much to student stress.
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I was reminded of this post I made from September. I stand by the assertion that Gen Z is not inherently more lazy than generations that came before them and that they do, in fact, want to work.
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