A study by UCLA economists Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu, published as CESifo Working Paper No. 12994 and NBER Working Paper 35796, analyzing US labor market data for summer 2026 found that the unemployment rate for graduates aged 22 to 25 stood at 7.3%, a figure comfortably within the range of the four preceding summers, which varied between 6.3% and 7.8%. The researchers found no statistically significant relationship between AI exposure and unemployment rates for 2026 graduates, whether entering AI-exposed occupations or belonging to control groups of older graduates or young people without degrees. An expanded unemployment measure capturing people who want jobs but are not actively searching reached approximately 9.3%, a consistent gap of about two percentage points above the standard rate rather than a new 2026 phenomenon. The study did note that graduates seeking jobs in fields with more remote work options faced slightly stiffer competition, a factor the researchers distinguished from AI impact through statistical separation of variables.
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