Business Insider analyzed the 12-month moving average of the unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-olds with and without college degrees in the NYC metro area, using data from the Current Population Survey, accessed via IPUMS<\/a>.<\/p>\n In June, the unemployment rates for both young New Yorkers without a degree and those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were at the same level of 7.7%. By September, non-degree candidates had returned to a higher rate of 8.1%, while those with a degree stood at 7.3%.<\/p>\n A May report<\/a> from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine<\/a> found that this was the “first time on record” young adults with a Bachelor’s degree or higher experienced an unemployment rate slightly higher than that of those without a college degree.<\/p>\n This historic swap comes after an increase in the unemployment rate among recent graduates and a decrease in the unemployment rate among same-age adults without a degree, which has “historically been relatively high,” according to the report.<\/p>\n The decline in New York’s college degree premium comes in a broader low-hire, low-fire economy, where layoffs have remained low, and job openings have been fewer. That’s especially true for industries hardest hit by AI, such as tech<\/a>, where there’s been a pullback in entry-level job openings.<\/p>\n “This is because technical skills\u2014many supplanted by AI\u2014have become less imperative, while soft skills and specialized company or industry-specific knowledge have become more so,” said the report from the New York City Comptroller. That dynamic impacts young workers \u2014 who haven’t had a chance to accumulate institutional knowledge \u2014 the most. On X, Levine highlighted the changing fortunes of the city’s young workers as “one more possible sign that AI is already impacting employment in NYC.”<\/p>\n That comes as more Americans question whether higher education is worth it, especially in the age of AI. A record low number of 31% of Americans consider college “very important,” according to a Gallup poll released in October. The percentage of those who perceive going to college<\/a> as “not too important” has increased by about the same level. The decrease was seen across demographic groups, including those who typically placed greater importance on college.<\/p>\n Want more Business Insider in your news feed?<\/p>\n \n Add BI in Google so our reporting is easier to find when you\u2019re searching for what matters.\n <\/p>\n These shifts in perspective could be partially tied to the rising cost of college, according to the Gallup report. But, even if AI is making it harder to find a job, the college wage premium<\/a> hasn’t dissipated \u2014 it might just take younger workers longer to land those salaries.<\/p>\n Are you a young worker newly entering the labor market? Share your experience with a reporter at mros@businessinsider.com<\/a> or jkaplan@businessinsider.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been a cornerstone of the job market for decades: Higher education is the surest path to steady…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[137577,57611,1533,59213,137581,91654,137578,18222,137580,9,24,55,54,8783,56,253,137582,10174,137579,4037],"class_list":["post-373718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ai-creep","tag-bachelor","tag-business-insider","tag-college-degree","tag-decrease","tag-degree","tag-dynamic-impact-young-worker","tag-high-education","tag-more-americans","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-yorkers","tag-ny","tag-report","tag-same-level","tag-sign","tag-steady-employment","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Line](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792056488_83_full.png\")
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