NYC Entry-Level Jobs Plunge 37% Since 2022, Hitting New Graduates

New York City has long been where ambitious young graduates go to launch careers — in finance, tech, media, law, and every industry in between. But a new report reveals that the city's once-abundant supply of entry-level positions has cratered, and the consequences are rippling far beyond the five boroughs.

The total number of available entry-level jobs in New York City fell 37% between 2022 and 2024, a loss of nearly 30,000 positions, according to the Center for an Urban Future's "Now Hiring" report released in March 2026 [1]. Paid internships — a critical on-ramp for young talent — plummeted from nearly 11,000 in 2019 to just under 7,000 in 2024 [1]. For the Class of 2025, the promise of New York as a launching pad is colliding with a fundamentally altered labor market.

The Numbers Paint a Bleak Picture

The New York story is a concentrated version of a national crisis. Across the United States, entry-level job postings have dropped roughly 35% since January 2023 [4], and 76% of employers reported hiring the same number or fewer entry-level employees in 2025 compared to the prior year [2]. Entry-level hiring nationally is now down 23% compared to March 2020 — exceeding the 18% decline in overall hiring over the same period [3].

Source: FRED / Bureau of Labor Statistics

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's data underscores the severity: the unemployment rate for recent college graduates (ages 22-27) climbed to 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 5.3% the prior quarter [5]. More alarming, the underemployment rate — measuring graduates working in jobs that don't require a college degree — surged to 42.5%, its highest level since the pandemic shutdowns of 2020 [5].

That means nearly half of all recent college graduates who are employed are doing work that doesn't utilize their education. Baristas with bachelor's degrees are no longer an anecdote — they are a statistical norm.

The AI Factor: Automation Eats the Bottom of the Ladder

The single largest structural driver of the entry-level collapse is the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. Generative AI tools have proven especially adept at handling precisely the tasks that junior employees once performed: drafting documents, basic data analysis, code generation, research summaries, and routine correspondence [6].

A Harvard University study tracking 62 million workers across 285,000 U.S. firms found that junior positions were "shrinking at companies integrating AI" beginning in 2023 [4]. Stanford University research determined that workers aged 22-25 in AI-exposed fields experienced a 13% relative decline in employment, even as older colleagues in the same sectors saw gains [4]. And the trend is accelerating: 66% of enterprises surveyed reported reducing entry-level hiring as they adopt AI tools [4].

The implications extend beyond immediate job availability. Entry-level roles have historically served as training grounds — the place where new professionals learn organizational culture, develop soft skills, and build the judgment that prepares them for mid-career responsibilities. As AI automates these "intellectually mundane tasks," as one researcher described them, the traditional career ladder is losing its bottom rungs [6].

"AI is not just ending entry-level jobs. It's the end of the career ladder as we know it," CNBC reported in a September 2025 analysis that tracked how firms from Goldman Sachs to mid-size law practices were restructuring workflows around AI tools rather than junior staffers [6].

New York City: A Microcosm With Outsized Stakes

New York's vulnerability to this trend is unique. The city's economy is disproportionately concentrated in precisely the white-collar sectors most affected — finance, law, tech, media, and professional services. These industries once absorbed thousands of entry-level hires each year, from Wall Street analyst classes to junior software engineers.

The city added just 44,200 jobs in 2025, a 0.9% increase — the weakest growth since 2020 [7]. What hiring did occur was concentrated in lower-wage education and health care roles, while "nearly every other sector posted zero or negative job growth" [7]. The NYC Comptroller's office warned that the job market was showing signs of structural weakness beneath the headline numbers [8].

Source: BLS / CES0000000001

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

Compounding the challenge, New York City now averages 62.2 applicants per job opening across its 63,063 listed positions [9]. For entry-level roles specifically, the competition is far fiercer, with some postings attracting hundreds of applicants within hours of going live.

Yet the city's magnetism persists. More than 565,000 people who graduated between 2022 and 2025 were working in New York as of December 2025, up from 490,000 a year earlier [1]. The question is increasingly what kind of work they're doing — and whether those jobs justify the crushing cost of living in the nation's most expensive metro area.

The Post-Pandemic Hangover

The current crunch is partly a correction to the extraordinary, and unsustainable, hiring boom of 2021-2022. In the wake of pandemic disruption, companies across industries went on aggressive hiring sprees, competing for talent with inflated salaries and rapid promotions. Entry-level hiring peaked in May 2022, according to payroll data from Gusto, which tracks over 400,000 small and medium-sized businesses [10].

That overheating left a lasting mark. Many firms discovered they had hired more junior staff than they needed, and as growth slowed, the correction was disproportionately felt at the bottom. Gusto's 2025 report found that new grad hiring was forecast to peak at a rate 44% lower in 2025 than it did in May 2022 [10].

At the same time, economic headwinds — persistent inflation, tariff uncertainty, and rising interest rates — made companies cautious about adding headcount. In a risk-averse environment, the first positions to get cut are often those with the shortest track records and the least institutional knowledge: entry-level roles.

The College Degree Premium Is Eroding

Perhaps the most striking finding comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, which documented a historic collapse in the employment advantage traditionally conferred by a college degree [11].

From June 2024 to June 2025, 37.1% of unemployed workers aged 22-27 with at least a bachelor's degree found work each month — compared to 41.5% of their peers with only a high school diploma [11]. In other words, young college graduates were actually finding jobs at a lower rate than non-graduates. The unemployment gap between the two groups has narrowed to its lowest level since the late 1970s [11].

This represents a fundamental challenge to the social contract that has underpinned higher education for decades. Students take on an average of $30,000 or more in debt on the premise that a degree will open doors. For a growing share of graduates, those doors are closing — or opening only to positions that don't require the credential they spent four years and considerable resources acquiring.

The Human Cost

For the Class of 2025, the statistics translate into daily anxiety. Over 2 million people earned bachelor's degrees in the spring of 2025; just 30% reported finding full-time employment [2]. The class submitted more job applications than their 2024 counterparts but received fewer offers, with an average of 0.78 offers per graduate compared to 0.83 the year before [3].

"None of us are really thriving," one recent graduate told CNBC in December 2025, describing months of applications yielding no callbacks [2]. The sentiment is widespread: 49% of young job seekers now believe AI has made their degrees less valuable [4].

The consequences ripple outward. Delayed career starts correlate with lower lifetime earnings — research has consistently shown that graduates who enter the workforce during downturns earn less than their peers for a decade or more. Housing decisions, family formation, and retirement savings are all downstream effects of that first job, or its absence.

Where the Jobs Are — and Aren't

Not all entry-level positions have disappeared equally. Gusto's data reveals striking geographic variation: while New York struggled, San Jose posted a 13.1% rise in new grad hiring, and San Francisco was up 8.1% [10]. The Bay Area's growth is driven by demand for early-career workers with AI and technical skills — the very technology that is displacing entry-level workers elsewhere.

Within New York, healthcare, education, and hospitality remain the strongest sources of entry-level employment [7]. But these are often lower-wage, higher-turnover positions that don't offer the career trajectories that draw ambitious graduates to the city. The tech sector, despite adding jobs overall (growing from 161,447 in 2019 to 203,819 in 2024), is hiring fewer junior workers and demanding more experience [12].

The paradox is stark: the economy is producing jobs, but not the kind of jobs that build middle-class careers for young workers.

The Return-to-Office Wrinkle

Adding friction to an already difficult market, the aggressive return-to-office mandates sweeping corporate America have further constrained options for entry-level workers [13]. Amazon implemented a five-day in-office requirement with no exceptions starting January 2025. Meta tracks attendance daily. HSBC and Barclays went straight to five days [13].

For young workers, this creates a geographic trap: remote work had briefly democratized access to jobs at elite firms for graduates who couldn't afford New York or San Francisco rents. Now, those opportunities are re-concentrating in expensive cities — but with fewer positions available once graduates arrive.

The Partnership for New York City reports that 57% of Manhattan office workers are now at their desks on an average weekday, reaching 76% of pre-pandemic levels, with 25% of employers planning to increase attendance requirements further [13].

What Can Be Done?

The Center for an Urban Future report calls for policy interventions to address the structural shift, including expanded apprenticeship programs, subsidized internships for small businesses, and investment in workforce training that prepares graduates for an AI-augmented economy rather than one where AI replaces them [1].

Some employers are responding with "AI-plus-human" models that redefine rather than eliminate entry-level roles. In these frameworks, junior workers use AI tools to handle routine tasks while focusing their development on the judgment, creativity, and interpersonal skills that remain distinctly human. Over the past two years, there has been a 400% increase in employers using "AI" in job descriptions — a signal that fluency with these tools is becoming table stakes [4].

For graduates themselves, the advice from career experts has shifted. The most career-ready graduates "are those who know how to keep reskilling and adapting to new tools," as one workforce researcher put it [4]. Flexibility on geography, willingness to start in adjacent roles, and demonstrated AI competency now matter as much as the name on the diploma.

The Bigger Question

The 37% decline in New York City's entry-level jobs is not merely a local labor market story. It is a leading indicator of a structural transformation in how economies absorb new workers. If the nation's largest and most dynamic job market cannot provide adequate opportunities for its youngest professionals, the implications extend to educational policy, housing affordability, immigration patterns, and the broader social mobility that has defined the American economic promise.

The data suggests the career ladder isn't broken — it's being rebuilt. The question is whether the new version will have room at the bottom for the millions of young Americans trying to climb it.