reSee.it Podcast Summary
Youth underemployment remains elevated, with post-2010 losses after the Great Recession and a COVID spike, approaching 2009 levels again. The panel notes underemployment surged in 2010, drifted until 2015, fell, then spiked after 2020, and has recently ticked up toward troubling levels. They cite AI as a major driver and point to hits at both high and low entry levels: college graduates facing weak entry-level tech jobs, and non-college trades experiencing softness as well. The result could be another lost generation post-COVID, especially for elder millennials who graduated into a shattered market. A viral story, “Goodbye $165,000 tech jobs. Student coders seek work at Chipotle,” shows AI tools, layoffs, and cheap labor reshaping hiring. Mansai Mishra, 21, Purdue CS grad, had no offers after graduation; the only interview call was Chipotle. Other data show graduates applying to hundreds of jobs with few interviews, some forced to take lower-skill work. The discussion stresses rethinking the college-to-work pipeline and AI’s impact on white- and blue-collar paths.