Gen Z graduates are blaming AI for their unemployment woes when they should be looking somewhere else | Fortune

Gen Z graduates are increasingly blaming AI for their unemployment difficulties, but an economist argues the broader labor-market squeeze better explains weak hiring rates. Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok said unemployment among recent graduates has remained around 5.6% versus a year earlier, showing little change after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. He noted the job-market weakness is concentrated in “AI-exposed” sectors that are also sensitive to Federal Reserve tightening, trade-war uncertainty, and slowing immigration, implying the entry-level hiring crunch predates widespread company deployment of AI. Using Federal Reserve Bank of New York data, Slok contrasted the 5.6% rate for recent graduates with 4.2% for all workers, the highest in four years. The article cites iCIMS data from January showing 51% of Gen Z see AI as the greatest threat to job security, while Glassdoor’s 2026 Worklife Trends report found AI discussions skewed negative.