Who should new grads boo more? AI or remote work?

What It Covers

The May 2025 jobs report shows 172,000 jobs added and unemployment steady at 4.3%, while new research challenges AI as the primary cause of struggles among young job seekers, pointing instead to remote work.

Key Questions Answered

• •Remote Work vs. AI Hiring Impact: Two new studies covering hundreds of millions of job postings from 2017–2035 find remote work, not AI, drives reduced junior hiring. Jobs with higher remote work rates consistently show lower willingness to hire limited-experience candidates across the US and other countries.
• •Young Graduate Unemployment: Nearly two-thirds of the recent unemployment rise among young college graduates links directly to remote work policies, per a 2025 US economics study. Employers prefer candidates with existing workplace skills because onboarding and soft-skill development are significantly harder in remote environments.
• •Wage Growth vs. Inflation Gap: Average hourly wages reached $37.53 in May 2025, up 3.4% year-over-year, but inflation runs at 3.8%, meaning real purchasing power is still declining. This gap, combined with strong hiring, makes Federal Reserve interest rate cuts unlikely and rate hikes plausible.
• •Black Unemployment as Leading Indicator: Cleveland Fed economist Kevin Rinz finds that a one-percentage-point rise in Black worker unemployment predicts a 0.2-percentage-point increase in overall unemployment within four to seven months, making the Black unemployment rate a reliable early warning signal for broader labor market deterioration.