Key Takeaways
- Employers plan to increase hiring of new graduates this spring, per The Wall Street Journal.
- The outlook now is notably better than the gloomy expectations employers voiced in November surveys.
- College graduates have faced a tough job market in recent years as tech companies scale back after pandemic-era overhiring and firms increasingly use AI to handle entry-level tasks.
The Class of 2026 is stepping into a hiring market that is slowly shifting in their favor.
Early signs suggest that entry-level hiring is starting to rebound after years of decline, per The Wall Street Journal. A closely watched survey released Monday by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) shows that companies plan to increase hiring of new graduates by 5.6% this spring compared to last year. This is a sharp reversal from November, when employers were bracing for a pullback, projecting flat or declining entry-level hiring amid economic uncertainty.
A recent survey from ZipRecruiter also found that over 30% of employers planned to hire more entry-level workers this year than in 2025.
Job prospects for college graduates have stalled in recent years, per the Journal. Many companies, particularly in tech, are still scaling back after pandemic-era overhiring. At the same time, the growing use of AI, which is capable of handling routine, entry-level work, has further slowed hiring.
Big firms are still hiring
Despite these factors, large firms like McKinsey and IBM have upped their entry-level hiring goals this year. McKinsey intends to increase hiring in North America by 12% this year and grow its number of entry-level hires, per Business Insider. AI will restructure some of the work McKinsey’s entry-level consultants perform, Blair Ciesil, a McKinsey partner leading global talent attraction at the firm, told the Journal.
“We think the work is going to continue to be even more important, but the nature of it is going to shift,” Ciesil told the outlet.
Meanwhile, IBM indicated in February that it plans to triple entry-level U.S. hiring this year as the nature of its junior roles evolves, per Bloomberg.
“The jobs that we had two years ago, AI can do almost all of it,” Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s chief human-resources officer, told the Journal. The jobs IBM is currently hiring for include fewer routine tasks and more time problem-solving with customers.
Early signs of a turnaround
Unemployment is trending downwards in an early sign of a turnaround. A Bank of America Global Research analysis released Friday, per the Journal, showed that unemployment for 20- to 24-year-olds with at least a Bachelor’s degree fell sharply in March to 5.3%. In comparison, the unemployment rate was 8.9% last fall, the highest level in roughly a decade outside the earliest months of the pandemic.
“It’s good news, but it does need to be moderated with the fact that the last two years’ hiring has been down considerably,” NACE President Shawn VanDerziel told the Journal.
Recent graduates are also starting to show early signs of a turnaround. A separate ZipRecruiter survey of 1,500 graduates, released last week, found that 77% secured a job within three months of finishing school, up from 63% a year ago.
Key Takeaways
- Employers plan to increase hiring of new graduates this spring, per The Wall Street Journal.
- The outlook now is notably better than the gloomy expectations employers voiced in November surveys.
- College graduates have faced a tough job market in recent years as tech companies scale back after pandemic-era overhiring and firms increasingly use AI to handle entry-level tasks.
The Class of 2026 is stepping into a hiring market that is slowly shifting in their favor.
Early signs suggest that entry-level hiring is starting to rebound after years of decline, per The Wall Street Journal. A closely watched survey released Monday by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) shows that companies plan to increase hiring of new graduates by 5.6% this spring compared to last year. This is a sharp reversal from November, when employers were bracing for a pullback, projecting flat or declining entry-level hiring amid economic uncertainty.
A recent survey from ZipRecruiter also found that over 30% of employers planned to hire more entry-level workers this year than in 2025.
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Sherin Shibu