Recent college graduates are having a harder time finding work, despite their higher education degrees, which usually give job-seekers a leg up in the labor market.  The key is what type of degree are being shought.

     That's according to a new report from Oxford Economics which shows that unemployed recent college grads account for 12% of an 85% rise in the national unemployment rate since mid-2023. That's a high number, given that this cohort only makes up 5% of the total labor force.  What's more, the rate of unemployment among workers who have recently graduated from college and are between the ages of 22 and 27, is nearing 6% —which is above the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. 

     "People who have obtained a bachelor's degree or higher have a higher unemployment rate than national average, and this is the first time this has happened in the last 45 years of data," Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told CBS MoneyWatch.   That's noteworthy, he said, because "those with higher educational attainment usually have better prospects overall than their peer with less."

     So why are recent college grads are having a tougher time finding work post-college than previous graduating classes did?  While the report points to a couple of factors, it finds that a slowdown in hiring in formerly hot sectors is driving the growth in unemployment among degree holders.  "The rise in the recent graduate unemployment rate is largely part of a mismatch between an oversupply of recent graduates in fields where business demand has waned," according to the report. 

     That holds especially true in the tech industry, as more college students graduate with degrees in computer science and related fields than any other major. "Prospects for employment will remain minimal for these individuals, keeping the unemployment rate elevated in the near term," Oxford Economics researchers wrote in the report.

     Computer science is among the fastest-growing fields of study among undergrads, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but jobs in the sector are particularly vulnerable to replacement by automation. Recent advances in artificial intelligence also expose workers in the field to being rendered obsolete.  "There's a mismatch between business demand and the labor supply overall," Martin said. "And it's very concentrated in the technology sector." The industry hired at a fast clip when the economy reopened post-pandemic, before pulling back. Those cuts are likely still affecting the current unemployment rate, according to Martin.