Is AI putting graduates out of work already?
Weekly edition
Current topics
Current topics
World
World
Business & economics
Business & economics
Opinion
Opinion
In depth
In depth
Culture, history & society
Culture, history & society
Our A-to-Zs
Our A-to-Zs
undefined undefined
Subscribe to The Economist<br>Unlock unlimited access to all our award-winning journalism, subscriber-only podcasts and newsletters
Subscribe to The Economist<br>Unlock unlimited access to all our award-winning journalism, subscriber-only podcasts and newsletters
Subscribe
Finance & economics | Techno-economics<br>Is AI putting graduates out of work already?<br>If you are studying coding, we might have some bad news<br>Share
Illustration: Katie Martin
May 13th 2026|3 min read
“There’s no sign in the data that AI is costing anybody their job right now,” Kevin Hassett, a White House adviser, said on May 11th. Someone should tell America’s class of 2026. “It’s grim,” one professor says of the market for graduate jobs. Artificial intelligence is the popular villain. At a recent commencement ceremony in Florida a speaker was booed for mentioning it. And not without reason: our analysis suggests AI may indeed be harming some graduates’ job prospects.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Rage against the machine”
From the May 16th 2026 edition<br>Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents<br>⇒Explore the edition
ShareReuse this content
More from Finance & economics
Free Exchange<br>How to share the AI windfall<br>Are taxes enough?
The jobs apocalypse: a (very) short history<br>Mass unemployment induced by AI would be unprecedented
How the world has avoided an oil catastrophe so far<br>The great commodity-market mystery is deepening
Buttonwood<br>Index rebalancing is now the biggest event in markets<br>But profiting from it is another matter
China wants more robots but not fewer workers<br>A human-first approach to automation
America is experiencing a productivity miracle<br>AI hasn’t—yet—got much to do with it
Get The Economist app on iOS or Android
The Economist
The Economist
The Economist Group
The Economist Group
Contact
Contact
Careers
Careers
To enhance your experience and ensure our website runs smoothly, we use cookies and similar technologies.<br>Manage cookies