As many students get ready to graduate and take the next steps in their futures, the state of the job market becomes a growing concern. The job market has been leaving many people going without a job for many weeks, even months.
The unemployment rate for the state of Utah is 61,738 people, or 3.3%, but for the United States it currently sits at 4.3% according to the latest census. Meaning, 7.4 million people without a job. Participants of an informal survey by The Signpost have growing concerns regarding the job market, with AI coming in and hirers not meeting the quota.
The class of 2025 has started finding ways to get ‘the job’ by applying for positions around six months before graduation, compared to 2024, which only did it six and a half months prior. Though the class of 2025 has been preparing more for graduation, they have also received fewer job offers. It is projected that only 0.6% of the class of 2025 will be hired.
“The job market right now is very tense. We know that more people are looking for jobs, or good jobs, than there are available, which is why it’s even more important to stand out in the right ways and to have the right qualities,” said Anna Gabur, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, “And I think that especially in light of AI and all the changes that it’s making, people, and especially young graduates, really need to rethink what they bring to this new job market.”
AI has made a big splash since the coronavirus pandemic made students work online and many people started relying on it for homework, essays, final exams, wedding vows and more. AI has now gotten to the point where many students and people use it in their everyday lives or careers, making it benefit them.
“If it’s benefiting us, who is us? Because it’s certainly benefiting some people more than it’s benefiting others. It’s certainly cutting some costs for certain employers who no longer need the same number of people working for them. So it might be better for some employers than it is for some employees,” Gabur said.
Many industries like engineering, data science or a developer, use AI to help with certain research or data input and output for their company. Positions in the food service and retail environment differ in their lack of need for AI involvement.
“I think that keeping that in mind that employers know about AI too, and employers know how to use it too. We and students just about to go on the job market are not necessarily the savviest and the smartest, and are going to use the AI tool against their employers so they can do less effort for more money because employers know that it’s out there,” Gabur said.
With AI on the rise, many jobs are either looking for people to help train the AI or are replacing people with it. Many positions have even gone beyond this and utilized AI to help screen applicants and narrow the candidate pool to the best candidates for human recruiters, for a more efficient and faster approach to the hiring process.
Students’ thoughts about AI being trained in certain workplaces and careers are anything but excited.
“It’s a risk, but that is something you know going into the field. No one in my program at Weber is going in thinking it’s a get-rich-quick career. It takes a lot of time, patience, and love. The entire career is a risk and half of the job is rejection and getting back up to try again,” said Aspen Bakner, a junior musical theatre major.
Some students feel that their careers are immune to the AI takeover.
“Politics is so subjective, it cannot be done by a robot. Seeing AI as a promotion for politicians is horrible as well because it shows no real effort into their ideas, and with how controversial AI is right now, it shows their care for others,” said Maya Martinez, a freshman in political science.
With the job market being the way it is there are many trends to look out for when trying to set yourself apart from other applicants.
“Now, as we see that there’s more and more capability for big data, big and quick data processing, we are going to want more numbers, want bigger data sets, want more scraped online data,” Gabur said. “But as you get more and more data, you also get more and more noise that a computer, AI or not, cannot really make sense of what does that mean for the average human being.”
There are many routes to take after graduation that can help students navigate the tough unemployment rate for the year and the upcoming one.
Many students have already made plans for their careers and have confidence in the choices made. Angelea Hansen, for example, plans to be a professional ballet dancer, and is confident in the career chosen and has confidence about how promising her career is, taking the steps necessary to get to that goal of hers.
83.3% of colleges state that students are, or have career readiness for the future, and 81.7% of Generation Z are satisfied with their careers, as they have experiential and engaged learning for the field in pursuit.
“Think beyond what your major is called or what that target job is called. There are so many jobs for which there is no specific major, for which there is no one specific concentration,” Gabur said. “Because, at the end of the day, what employers hire is not a bachelor’s diploma. They don’t hire a piece of paper. They hire a human who can provide certain skills.”
Most places of work are looking for someone who can stand outside the box of what work you are looking to get into. Such as, what skills do you have, and how can you highlight those skills for those who really need them.
“Because at the end of the day, that is what people hiring need. It’s skills that others don’t have, and tying that back to AI. AI knows how to do a lot of things. It does not know how to communicate with a person face-to-face. It does not know how to judge what is valuable to a human being,” Gabur said.
