@layoffai’s post on 31 October quoted @BarefootStudent’s list of the majors with the highest unemployment, per the New York Fed, and said computer engineering was at 7.8% in 2024 against 2.3% in 2022. This piece checks those figures against the New York Fed’s own tables.
Short explainer · Computer engineering grads’ jobless rate
A vertical news Short summarising this story. Figures come from the New York Fed’s outcomes-by-major tables; our arithmetic is labelled.
Recent computer engineering graduates had an unemployment rate of 7.8% in 2024, up from 2.3% in 2022, according to the New York Fed’s table of outcomes by college major. That is 3.4 times the 2022 rate, by our arithmetic, while the rate for all recent graduates rose from 3.6% to 4.2%.
Computer engineering now ranks No. 2 of 73 majors for unemployment, behind anthropology at 7.9% and ahead of fine arts at 7.7%. Computer science is fourth at 7.0%, up from 4.3% in 2022.
The key insight: As we read the New York Fed tables, computer engineering went from below the all-graduate unemployment rate to the second highest of 73 majors in two data years, while its graduates’ median pay rose.
What the New York Fed Table Shows
The figures come from the New York Fed’s Labor Market for Recent College Graduates, which covers graduates aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher and excludes those still enrolled. The table released on 4 February 2026 is “based on data from 2024”, drawn from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
A ranking of the majors with the highest unemployment, posted on X by @BarefootStudent on 31 October and confirmed by @layoffai in a post with about 61,000 views, matches the top of that table: anthropology, computer engineering, fine arts and computer science. The New York Fed updates the outcomes-by-major tab annually in February, so the 2024 figures are the latest by major.
Unemployment rate of recent college graduates (aged 22 to 27) by major, from the New York Fed’s outcomes-by-major tables released in February 2024, 2025 and 2026 (data years 2022 to 2024). Multiples are our arithmetic.
From Below Average to No. 2
In the 2022 data, computer engineering graduates were unemployed at 0.65 times the rate of all recent graduates, by our arithmetic. In the 2024 data the multiple was 1.85 times. The jump came between the two releases: the 2023 data, published in February 2025, already had computer engineering at 7.5% and computer science at 6.1%.
Pay has not followed the same path. The table’s median early-career wage for computer engineering graduates working full time was $90,000 in the 2024 data, against $80,000 in the 2022 data, and it is above the $58,000 for all majors. Underemployment for computer engineering, 15.8%, is far below the 39.4% for all recent graduates.
The Wider Graduate Market
The New York Fed’s quarterly highlights for the second quarter of 2026 say: “Labor market conditions remained challenging for recent college graduates through the second quarter of 2026. The unemployment rate stayed elevated at about 5.6 percent, and the underemployment rate edged up to 42 percent.” Its data file puts recent graduates at 5.7% in June 2026 against 4.1% for all workers, 1.4 times, by our arithmetic.
The Business Lever: The Entry-Level Pipeline
The New York Fed does not attribute the change in any major’s unemployment rate to a cause, and neither do we. Other reporting on AI and work sits alongside it. Goldman found AI-displaced workers stayed jobless about a month longer, as we reported; Microsoft offered buyouts to 60,000 staff, as we reported; and Proton’s CTO said AI wrote 90% of its October code, as we reported.
A survey backed by Google DeepMind found one in five would turn down 120% of their pay, as we reported.
The Structural Read
As we read the tables, computer engineering’s rate was 0.65 times the all-graduate rate in the 2022 data and 1.85 times in the 2024 data, by our arithmetic.
As we read the tables, most of the rise came in one step: 2.3% in the 2022 data to 7.5% in the 2023 data, then 7.8% in the 2024 data.
As we read the tables, computer science rose by 2.7 points to 7.0% over the same two data years, while all recent graduates rose by 0.7 points, by our arithmetic.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2026:Q2 highlights
“Labor market conditions remained challenging for recent college graduates through the second quarter of 2026.”
Three Implications
FOR NEW GRADUATES The New York Fed table puts computer engineering at No. 2 of 73 majors for unemployment in 2024, at 7.8%.
FOR EMPLOYERS The same table gives computer engineering graduates a median early-career wage of $90,000, up from $80,000 in the 2022 data.
FOR THE WIDER MARKET The New York Fed says recent graduates’ unemployment was about 5.6 percent in the second quarter of 2026.
The framework says “technical capability has far outpaced organizational readiness”.
As we read the New York Fed tables, the hiring data for new engineering graduates is one place to watch how that gap shows up in the labour market. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss these figures.
The table does not explain why computer engineering unemployment rose. Each major’s rate comes from a survey sample, so year-to-year moves for a single major carry more noise than the overall rate. The figures cover 2024; the New York Fed has not yet published by-major data for 2025.
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In the New York Fed’s latest table by major, recent computer engineering graduates were unemployed at 7.8% in 2024, up from 2.3% in 2022, No. 2 of 73 majors and 1.85 times the 4.2% rate for all recent graduates, by our arithmetic. Their median early-career pay was $90,000.
A note on sourcing. The rates, ranks, wages and dates come from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Labor Market for Recent College Graduates (outcomes-by-major tables released in February 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the 2026:Q2 highlights); earlier versions of the table were read from archived copies of the New York Fed’s data file. Multiples are our arithmetic. The New York Fed does not attribute the changes to a cause.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
