Companies are already using AI to decrease the number of entry-level roles they plan to hire. And with federal government layoffs and general uncertainty in the economy, graduating college students are facing an uphill climb as they enter the job market.

We teach at Harvard and Northwestern and we have found that even the brightest of graduates are struggling to find jobs. Although the current economic landscape is unique, it is not entirely different from difficult labor markets in the past. We remember ourselves what it was like to be newly-minted college graduates during the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987 and on the heels of the dot-com bubble crash in 2002.