Americans With Four-Year Degrees Now Comprise a Record 25% of Unemployed Workers

Thursday’s BLS figures showed young Americans are bearing the brunt of the recent rise in joblessness. 

Photographer: Michael Okoniewski/Bloomberg

Americans with four-year college degrees now comprise a record 25% of total unemployment, underscoring a sharp slowdown in white-collar hiring this year.

Government-shutdown delayed monthly figures published Thursday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree-holders rose to 2.8% in September, up a half-percentage point from a year earlier. Other levels of education, by contrast, registered little or no increase over the same period.