The white-collar unemployment rate in the United States has reached a record high, and college graduates account for 25% of the total unemployed.

People with four-year college degrees now account for a record 25 percent of total unemployment in the U.S., data show, underscoring a sharp slowdown in white-collar hiring this year. The unemployment rate for people with a bachelor's degree rose to 2.8 percent in September, up half a percentage point from a year ago, according to monthly data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was delayed by the government shutdown. By contrast, the unemployment rate for people with other education levels rose little or no at all over the same period. More than 1.90 million unemployed Americans aged 25 and older with at least a bachelor's degree accounted for a quarter of total unemployment in September. It has never been this high in data going back to 1992 before 2025. This suggests that younger, fresh graduates are also struggling to find jobs. Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase, noted that rising unemployment among college-educated people "should further exacerbate unemployment concerns related to artificial intelligence".