Overview
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published a study Monday estimating that remote work explains about 64% of the increase in unemployment among college graduates under 29 since the pandemic.
- Researchers compared 'remotable' and non-remotable occupations and found the unemployment rise was concentrated in jobs that can be done from home, where young grads lost ground while older grads’ jobless rates held steady or fell.
- Proprietary hiring data from an unnamed Fortune 500 firm show the company hired fewer inexperienced workers during office closures, resumed some new-grad hiring after stricter return-to-office rules, but continued to favor experienced hires on distributed teams.
- The study says reduced proximity cut feedback and mentorship for junior staff, weakening employers’ incentives to train new graduates, and it finds that this pattern predates and is not explained by recent generative‑AI diffusion.
- Some academics caution the evidence is mixed and point to hybrid or on-site options as partial fixes, and the findings raise concerns about lasting 'scarring' effects on early-career earnings and career trajectories.