Today’s young people have endured crisis after crisis—social media upheaval, a pandemic, and political turmoil. And for many eager to finally start their careers, they’re facing yet another uphill battle: entering one of the toughest job markets in a decade.
Job postings are down, and unemployment among recent graduates has climbed to 9.3%, according to the Federal Reserve—its highest level outside of the pandemic since 2014.
But one lawmaker says this may only be the beginning.
Unemployment for recent college graduates could surge to as high as 25% in the next two to three years, warned U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an interview with Bloomberg, and it could cause a “level of social disruption that’s unprecedented.”
“If we eliminate that front end of the pipeline, how are people ever going to get to that mid-career spot?” Warner added to CNBC.
Oh please, it’s not thanks to AI.
Oh well if a senator said it then by all means, let’s stop and take notice.
Federal jobs guarantee
At the moment, the numbers on unemployment are being actively hidden by the federal government. As such, doubt is cast and no one can rally around any facts because there is no central source for those facts on the national level.
The current people of the ruling class can’t do anything about it. Capitalism is going to proceed on its path, driving them to keep running over more and more people. It’ll only stop when enough of us have been fucked over that we can take the power away from them.
If you feel this is abstract or theoretical, just look at the utter inability of the system to stop itself from inflating the obvious AI bubble. It’s right in front of us. Everyone sees it. The ruling cass sees it. And they can’t stop inflating it. This isn’t random. Competition demands it. Imagine being the loser that decided to stop investing while your competitors actually get something out of it after the crash. That might turn you into a regular worker, making a living from a salary. A terrible thought.
The current people of the ruling class can’t do anything about it
They absolutely could do something about it as proven by how the current (US) administration has made things markedly worse than the previous admin. (If they can make it worse then they can also make it better)
The ruling class fought hard to get the current administration elected so they can get the benefits it gave them so far and it’s about to give them in the future. And the part of the class that didn’t, later came onboard. The tax cuts and subsidies are massive. They’re probably even gonna get bailed out of the AI crash.
The thing is, there’s competition for growing profits. Not merely in one product market or another, because firms buy each other across markets. So if a firm doesn’t profit maximize, it runs the risk of a profit-maximizer accumulating capital faster, eventually having enough to buy that firm. And so every firm that understands this risk engages in ever growing profits. And unfortunately growing profits means extracting more money from peoples incomes by increasing prices, reducing wages and reducing headcounts. These pressures push them to choose to do the thing that makes things worse for the employee class. They can make things better but practically competition makes them tend to choose worse. If a firm doesn’t, “another one will.” They only make things better when forced to by market pressures (e.g. labour shortage), collective action (unions, boycotts), or government action (regulation). They own the government (both parties), they’ve busted the unions, so they’re left to act on market pressures. And there’s plenty of workers looking for work.
This is also why I said that it’ll take enough of us being fucked over to changes this. It’s gonna take the form of us unionizing as well as organizing to take political power. E.g. grassroots campaigns to elect socialist candidates, as they’re the only ones who’d represent our interests. Like Zohran’s campaign.
I know, I just take (very very slight) issue with your choice of “can’t” rather than “won’t”
