TJ FAVELA
As the purge of American workers heightens, the scraps of what little optimism college students had left for their career-ready future diminish.
U.S.-based employers announced almost 49,800 corporate layoffs in the month of January, according to a report released Feb. 6 by Challenger, Grey & Christmas, Inc. Since then, the number of large-scale jobs cuts has only increased.
Amazon, Southwest Airlines and Chevron are just a few companies to name who said they anticipate cutting 15% or more of their corporate staff.
The unsettling rise in massive terminations has left college students disturbed as they prepare for the corporate world. Universities can continue allocating funds toward graduates’ readiness for work, but if there are no readily available jobs, what will students be prepared for?
While watching President Donald Trump conduct mass firings of federal workers, the dependency on the country’s capacity to provide the next generation with subsequent recourses for success has diminished.
As the job market weakens, prices on consumer goods continue to rise without any foreseeable resolution to inflation as tariffs begin to roll out. This, along with Trump’s threats to freeze financial aid, has disparaged what little faith students had left toward a promising future.
The increasing anxiety for what opportunities lie in store for soon-to-be graduates makes the laborious task of completing college seem pointless.
Less than half of recent four-year college graduates reported obtaining a job within their first year out of school, while only 45% of 2014 graduates hold a job requiring their college degree, according to a 2024 study by Strada, an education foundation aiming to bridge the gap between education and opportunity.
The job market is too competitive for graduates to flourish, and employers demanding three to five years of relevant experience for entry-level positions is driving the workforce-ready alumni straight into unemployment.
Colleges recommend soon-to-be graduates apply for internships to give them the necessary skills for future employment. However, internships rarely provide a sustainable income to their time-consuming jobs, making the overworked intern acquire another source of income.
Most students work while attending college, and the argument they must add an internship on top of their already busy schedule to be triumphant is daunting.
Now, it’s becoming a standard for teenagers to be registered in dual credit courses for them to graduate high school with an associate degree and get into a university faster.
The rigorous demands for a student’s success are uselessly pressured at such a young age as the current job market continuously fails the newly honored and prepared alumni.
Roughly 98% of companies said they’re struggling to find talent in their application pools, according to a report released from the Hult International Business School last month. However, the same report said 89% of those employers also admitted to avoiding applications from recent college graduates.
It is contradictory for an employer to criticize the aptitude of their applicant pool while actively limiting its size to exclude fresh, new minds from consideration.
Corporations insist ingenuity brings growth and is a valued skill. But if innovative ideas are wanted, then hiring a recent graduate would be ideal. However, employers from the Hult report said these applicants are not prepared for the workforce and complained it’s too much of a time-consuming cost needed to train them.
Another issue employers are said to have with recent graduates is they lack work ethic, are entitled, offended easily and don’t respond well to feedback, according to a survey by Intelligent, an online magazine focused on higher education.
While the misconduct from the younger generation of new workers is inexcusable, it isn’t unexplainable. Many of us grew up with the debated participation trophy, and we’re told we could be anything we wanted to so long as we worked hard enough.
Not to mention, almost two years of our lives were spent locked inside, sitting behind computer screen lectures, during some of the most integral stages to developing our social skills.
Consider it an inability to receive feedback or an emotional response, either way our generation is the future of these corporations’ workers and consumers.
Since childhood, our generation was taught not to fit into molds and to stand out through creative expression. We had a hand to hold and guide us through every experience and were asked at the end of every task how we felt about it.
Now as adults, we’re being told our self-expression and sensitivity don’t work in the corporate world and it’s too expensive and time-consuming trying to train us to fit into the workforce mold.
Instead of punishing us out of or wasting funds on preparing us for a workforce based on standards from the past, time should be spent on better understanding the new generation’s work ethic and meeting us in the middle.
The future of this country’s economy and success depend on this generation of new employees.
If currently thriving corporations want to continue flourishing, then young minds must be integrated into a new mold generated through employers recognizing the strengths and unique capacities of this generation’s misunderstood individuality.