It’s a rare day when someone doesn’t ask me about how 2025 was or what I think ’26 will look like.
My short answer is simply, “It’ll be a lot like 2025.”
For starters, it’s taking even longer to land jobs, no matter if you are a recent college graduate or an experienced worker who needs to change jobs.
Companies are still not hiring and for the most part, they’re not firing or cutting their employee count.
That can change quickly, but controlling staffing expenses is a key concern. And because of the “no-hire, no-firing” stalemate, not many employees are quitting to find a better job.Instead, they’re hunkering down and doing their best to be essential, a task that will get harder and harder given the rising tide of AI.
The national unemployment rate, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has jumped to 4.6% and San Diego’s has grown to 4.9%, highest since the COVID era.
As an aside, those of us in the staffing field remain dubious about the BLS since the Trump administration fired the commissioner last summer because the president didn’t like the numbers that were released.
Nice try, but I’m convinced that the “real” numbers are worse.
Whatever the case, of the 64,000 new jobs that were reported, 46,000 came from the health care industry.
I’ve written before that while only a small percentage of health care consists of doctors and nurses, the sector hires employees for just about every skill out there.
Each year, the field keeps growing as many more Americans reach senior status, and new technologies keep us living longer. Then there’s burnout, a quiet residual of the pandemic.
Ratcheting up its enforcement
As for student loans, the administration is ratcheting up its enforcement action.
Whether you’re working or not, if your monthly loan payments are lagging, get ready to receive a letter demanding that you had better start paying or your salary will be garnished.
Which leads me to another trend for ’26.
A recent NBC News poll showed that less than one-third of Americans think that a four-year college degree is worth the cost, marking a dramatic decline over the past decade.
Those 63% say it’s not worth the cost because students often graduate without specific job skills, burdened by a large amount of debt.
Many young out-of-work college graduates are having a harder time finding jobs than high-school grads, and in this case, AI isn’t the culprit.
The fact is, we have produced too many college grads who are ill-prepared for the current and future workplace.
Can’t find enough skilled mechanics
Meanwhile, we have a dearth of young people entering what’s known as the skilled trades.
Ford CEO Jim Farley recently declared that he can’t find enough skilled mechanics to hire for his auto plants, and surprisingly, money isn’t the issue.
According to Farley, Ford has 5,000 openings for mechanics that pay $120,000 a year. Sounds good, if you’re skilled.
Consider these numbers:
Only 114,000 Americans in their 20s completed a vocational program during the first 10 months of last year, versus 1.24 million graduates with an undergraduate degree and 405,000 with advanced degrees.
If your career goals demand a four-year degree or higher, and you believe there will be a demand for your skills when you join the workforce, then go for it.
But if that’s not you, think long and hard about spending, debt or not, $200,000 or more for a four-year college degree that doesn’t seem likely to lead to a specific job or career.
I talked to a father whose daughter went to a private college and came out with a generalist degree. He told me that five years after graduating, she decided to quit her barista job to pursue a master’s in library science.
At first, I bristled, but knowing me, he quickly added that she had fully researched the field and discovered that there were plenty of openings in the private sector, with very few qualified graduates who had earned that major.
That was exactly what I wanted to hear.
Blair is co-founder of Manpower Staffing and can be reached at pblair@manpowersd.com.