Why are young professionals facing such a tough job market? Hint: It's not just AI

But new research suggests another culprit may be doing more of the damage: remote work.  “Remote work can explain 64% of the increase in unemployment for all young college graduates between 2017-19 and 2022-24,” researchers wrote in a blog post published Monday by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Separately, a paper by economists Peter John Lambert and Yannick Schindler of the London School of Economics posted last month reached a similar conclusion. The authors found that work-from-home exposure was a stronger predictor of the pullback in early-career hiring than exposure to artificial intelligence, at least so far.

“Junior workers rely heavily on training, mentoring, supervision, informal feedback and internal networks,” Schindler said, “which are all things where in-person contact is really important.”

people in their 20s are generally eager to work in an office at least part time. The same is true for many workers older than 50, who tend to be more senior, are less likely to have young children at home, and whose jobs often involve more meetings and supervising.   “It’s the people in the middle of those ages — the ones who have families, who don’t need day-to-day mentoring because they’re already well on their career path,” he told Straight Arrow, “who want the flexibility of working from home.”