There is a growing demand for AI skills, and the number of employers seeking such applicants has reached new levels, even as the overall labor market has stagnated. So let’s talk about what this means for new graduates entering the job market.
Seeking STEM degrees
According to a recent employment ranking of college majors, which combines Federal Reserve unemployment data with BLS employment projections to score degrees on job security and growth potential, many of the degrees dominating the charts are concentrated in STEM fields. The analysis points to the rising investment in artificial intelligence and, in particular, the projected growth of data scientist jobs as a major driver of these rankings.
What’s most interesting is that the majority of this employment growth is expected outside traditional technology sectors. In fact, it is estimated that 51% of AI-related job postings are now in non-tech industries, such as agriculture and logistics, up from 39% five years ago. The job board Indeed.com found that from the start to the end of 2025, AI mentions in marketing job postings grew from 8.4% to 14.9%. For human resource positions, the share of postings with AI mentions doubled from 4.4% to 8.8% during the same time period.
A focus on AI has even reached the federal government. Last April, the White House budget office ordered every corner of the government to deploy AI. As reported by the Washington Post, government agencies have “launched hundreds of artificial intelligence projects in the past year, many of them taking on central and sensitive roles in law enforcement, immigration and health care.”
The varying STEM pipelines
Even though STEM jobs are outpacing other roles, the gaps in workforce representation remain severe, and the current pipeline of students isn’t expected to narrow those gaps anytime soon. For example, even though women earn the majority of undergraduate degrees, “they remain a small share of degree earners in fields like engineering and computer science.” Similarly, many minority groups are underrepresented as STEM graduates, especially at the master’s and doctoral levels.
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been helping to address this gap. Despite enrolling only 9% of Black undergraduates in the U.S., HBCUs account for a significantly higher proportion of STEM degree graduates – a trend that has held true for decades. For example, between 1995 and 2004, 46% of black women who earned a STEM degree graduated from an HBCU, and in 2012, 25% of African Americans who earned a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field that year graduated from an HBCU.
The bifurcation of jobs
However, even if underrepresented students start flocking to STEM programs now, it won’t mean they will have an easier time securing a job upon graduation – and AI may be to blame. While AI isn’t the sole reason for the sudden decline, it is certainly a major factor. A survey from early last year found that 37% of managers stated they would rather use AI than hire a Gen Z graduate.
As AI capabilities increase, there is evidence that companies – in and out of tech – are already reducing their investment in young workers. Researchers have found that in AI-exposed occupations, early-career workers (age 22-25) experienced a significant decline in employment rates, whereas employment in other occupations remained stagnant over the same time period. The researchers concluded that their results are “consistent with the hypothesis that generative AI has begun to affect entry-level employment significantly.”
SignalFire’s 2025 State of Tech Talent report found that at major tech companies, new graduate hiring has decreased 25% since 2023 and is down over 50% from 2019. Similarly at startups, new graduates make up less than 6% of hires, down over 30% since 2019. At the same time, firms have been increasing their hiring of more experienced roles, which puts new graduates in a paradoxical position: they need experience to get hired, but they can’t get experience without being hired.
