{"id":839783,"date":"2026-09-07T19:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T19:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839783\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T19:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T19:24:12","slug":"us-job-market-is-booming-for-people-with-no-college-degrees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/839783\/","title":{"rendered":"US job market is booming for people with no college degrees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skipped the college degree \u2014 landed the better job market. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the twist playing out across America right now \u2014\u00a0and the numbers back it up.<\/p>\n

A fresh analysis from labor-market think tank Burning Glass Institute finds unemployment among workers ages 22 to 34 without a college degree has rarely been this low in two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Workers ages 22 to 34 without college degrees are enjoying some of the lowest unemployment rates seen in two decades. bulentbaris \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Meanwhile their diploma-toting peers, especially those with advanced degrees or STEM backgrounds, are stuck in one of their roughest stretches on record.<\/a><\/p>\n

For most of the past twenty years, these two groups moved in lockstep. Degree or no degree, when the job market boomed, everyone benefited, and when it tanked, everyone felt it. Not anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a rapidly growing supply of people with a bachelor\u2019s degree, and you have a rapid decline of people who don\u2019t,\u201d Gad Levanon, Burning Glass\u2019s chief economist told the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, which first reported on the study. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a temporary thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blame it on basic economics. Skilled tradespeople are aging out of the workforce faster than they can be replaced, and immigration has slowed the pipeline of new labor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the same time, more Americans than ever are graduating college, <\/a>right as AI starts chewing through the entry-level tasks companies used to hand fresh grads.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, degree-holders face one of the toughest stretches on record. Ljupco Smokovski \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Chief economist Gad Levanon points to a growing oversupply of bachelor\u2019s degree holders combined with a shrinking pool of skilled tradespeople as older workers retire and immigration slows. Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t burn the diploma just yet. In raw terms, a college degree still opens doors, the numbers showed.<\/p>\n

Prime-age degree holders (25 to 54) posted a 2.7 percent unemployment rate over the year ending in July \u2014\u00a0compared to 3.6 percent for workers with some college and 4.7 percent for high school grads only. The difference now is the shrinking gap between the groups. <\/p>\n

When Levanon measured each group against its own two-decade unemployment history, blue-collar and hands-on service jobs (construction, manufacturing, security, nursing, restaurants, retail) are suddenly riding historic highs, opportunity-wise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

College-educated twenty-somethings, on the other hand, have only seen it this bad during the pandemic \u2014\u00a0and the aftermath of the 2008 crash.<\/p>\n

AI is compounding the problem by absorbing entry-level tasks once reserved for fresh grads. Monkey Business \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

The August jobs report drove the point home. Restaurants and bars alone added 59,000 jobs, more than a third of the entire month\u2019s 162,000 job gains nationwide.<\/p>\n

And unemployment numbers only tell part of the story<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Millions of Americans aren\u2019t counted because they\u2019re not even looking, sidelined by illness, still in school, or worn down after a long fruitless search.<\/p>\n

Degrees still carry an edge in raw numbers, with prime-age holders posting a 2.7 percent unemployment rate versus 4.7 percent for high schoolers only. But measured against their own historical trends, blue-collar and service workers are thriving while young college grads are struggling nearly as much as during the 2008 recession. anatoliycherkas \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

That dropout rate skews heavily by education. Nearly a quarter of young high school diploma holders are out of the labor force entirely, compared to roughly one in seven among college grads, according to Brookings Institution data.<\/p>\n

Nobody knows if this role reversal sticks. Levanon says it\u2019s still an open question whether the entry-level professional drought continues, or whether AI and robotics eventually start squeezing blue-collar and service jobs too.<\/p>\n

His advice to new grads, including his own kid, he said \u2014\u00a0get flexible, fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be very hard to find a job at top companies, but it\u2019s easier if you\u2019re willing to compromise,\u201d he told the WSJ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skipped the college degree \u2014 landed the better job market. That\u2019s the twist playing out across America right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[23,4687,28,1976,18634,101,4084,58345,33971,134,149,169144,13644,3284,447,145],"class_list":["post-839783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-america","tag-analysis","tag-business","tag-college","tag-college-degree","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-job-growth","tag-job-interviews","tag-jobs","tag-lifestyle","tag-living-wage","tag-stem","tag-study-says","tag-trade","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}