Young Americans who don't sit in the office

In 2024, the number of higher education graduates in China surpassed 11.79 million for the first time. [1] According to data from Zhaopin Recruitment, among recent graduates’ post-graduation plans, the proportion opting for freelance or gig work rather than traditional employment has reached 13.7%, and this figure does not include the “slow‑employment” group—those who defer job placement or take transitional measures such as preparing for exams or studying abroad.

The increasing number of highly educated graduates entering the gig market is not unique to China. With the global expansion of higher education, the stable exchange relationship that once existed between a bachelor's or master's degree and an "office career" is loosening. University graduates in North America and Europe are also beginning to face a tightening job market, and"Underemployment”（underemployment）的困扰。

The so-called underemployment means that although workers have jobs, they cannot make full use of their educational background or vocational training. For example, a young man with a bachelor's degree in computer science cannot find an entry-level position related to his major, and instead enters a position that usually does not require a university degree and stays in it for a long time. This is a typical underemployment phenomenon.

Compared with simple unemployment (unemployment), underemployment is more hidden and easier to ignore, because young people who experience this situation still have a job to invest time and a little income to support themselves, and do not belong to the group that urgently needs social help or government intervention.

After the 2008 financial crisis, a slightly black humorous word began to appear frequently in American news headlines: "Doctor Barista (PhD barista)", which the media used to symbolize the underemployment dilemma faced by a large number of higher education graduates. The American Economic Association pointed out that the financial crisis is not the starting point of this phenomenon, but only amplifies an already existing structural contradiction:In the past, higher education promised young people a clear upward path: to college, to stay in big cities, to go to office buildings. However, as higher education continues to expand, college graduates continue to increase, and white-collar job growth slows, the once solid bridge between education and employment has loosened.

This change does not exist only in statistics, but in a specific person.

I thought of a boy who worked as an alumni volunteer before, helping with resumes and interviews. He comes from a small town in the southern United States. He finished his undergraduate degree in economics at a top ten university in the United States. He looks sunny and generous, and his conversation is quite polite. He handed a small gift as soon as he met, saying: "Everyone is so busy now. Thank you for being willing to meet me anyway."

The resume he carefully submitted is almost blameless: he has been a course assistant since his freshman year, has been the treasurer of the on-campus speech club, has done several programming projects, has done an internship in a start-up company, has a good grade point, and volunteers to teach pre-courses in a nearby high school every week. A limited piece of paper is crammed full, and a line of small print tries to squeeze into the bottom of the page: hobbies are reading and playing golf.

Judging from his stiff inner shoulder, the emphasis on sports hobbies probably came from a certain fairy pointing the way. Legend has it that some Wolf of Wall Street, who advocated entertaining and entertaining, liked to ask interns to play ball together.

For him, the job market for fresh graduates in 2025 seems to be extremely deserted. This page of irredeemable resumes has been sent out hundreds of times, and the mailbox is still silent. With the help of the university's career office, he began making coffee meetings with alumni and meeting with volunteers like me every week, both to improve his resume and to get pushed in.

For most North American enterprises, internal promotion can really help job seekers skip resume screening and obtain the qualification to interview with business managers, but only if the company has a business group recruiting from outside. After all, under the reality of tight employment budget, no one can create a junior post that needs to invest money and training resources out of thin air. Even if a post happens to appear, incoming emails from various colleagues immediately snowflake from all directions. Most fresh graduates try their best to get recommendations better than nothing.

The boy has done all that needs to be done, but in the face of the reality of one in a million, personal efforts need to be lucky. If there is no income all the time, maybe it will be a better decision to go back to the small town. The cost of living in the big cities of North America is too high, as if you have to spend money every time you breathe.

After meeting for more than a month, I received an email from him saying that I thanked him for pushing in, but unfortunately it didn't succeed in the end; at present, he is working as a kitchen in McDonald's. Although his arms have become hard, his brain can relax. At the end of the email, he wrote: "I will continue to post my resume and expect to have good news for you in the near future. If you pass by the xx branch, please come in and eat free French fries. Now it's my turn to open the internal channels of world-renowned enterprises for you.)"

While I was amused by the blinking expression, I also felt a little puzzled: even if AI can make more detailed statements than junior employees, it cannot replace the humor and optimism of a young man for the time being. The pursuit of efficiency is the instinct of enterprises, but up to now, human beings still make up the texture of these behemoths, and people need to absorb the precious substances of humor and optimism.

Besides, I'm not sure if things are going in a leisurely and optimistic way: while French fries are paid about the same as junior white-collar workers, fast food restaurants rarely employ full-time employees and have to fight for shifts to ensure their income. Secondly, should he put this job on his resume? If he did, would it make the next job a similar part-time job, and eventually he would never be able to do a job with knowledge barriers? If you skip it, the longer the gap period after the graduate leaves school, the more suspicion you have to face.

I happened to be sitting next to an HR colleague at an office dinner and couldn't resist telling her the student's story. Her answer was almost without any hesitation: "of course. Please convey it to him. Be sure to write down the experience of the fast food restaurant."

She believes that for recruiters, the main function of a resume is to present a person's trajectory. It is definitely not unusual today that I did not find a job for a while after graduation. What is important is,When the original good idea is disrupted, what does the person choose to do? Entering the gig economy (gig economy) system should not be a stain, it just shows that this person is still in contact with society, willing to use labor to create value, and did not wait for opportunities as a reason to stop action.

Moreover, many mainstream human resources certificate exams will mention a word called "transferable skills (transferable skills)", which refers to those abilities that will not fail with industry changes and can move between different positions, such as communication, collaboration, emotional management, problem solving, and the ability to learn and respond to change quickly in a high-pressure environment. Most of the time, these skills are not necessarily developed in the office.

For example, this boy who works in a fast food restaurant needs to deal with the rush hour, the high temperature of the oil pan, and the temporary requirements of customers at the same time every day, and complete the judgment and execution within tens of seconds. These experiences have tempered the ability to migrate to other occupations: maintaining output in high-pressure environments, switching quickly between multithreaded tasks, and maintaining a stable communication style despite mood swings.

His experience is not unique. According to employment data cited by the "Wall Street Journal", at the beginning of 2025, about 41% to 42% of recent college graduates in the United States were working in jobs that usually do not require a college degree. As the gig market becomes a career transition space for more and more young people, it is no longer just job seekers who should adapt.Employers and society as a whole need to re-understand the value of labor experience. The ability of a job seeker to accumulate in a fast food restaurant or coffee shop does not lose its value because it occurs outside the office.

At the beginning of 2026, I received another email from the boy. He found a part-time job in industry research through Haitou's resume and may soon have the opportunity to become a regular employee. I was genuinely happy, even though it meant that his arms and brain would take turns.

Some people may say that this student's experience cannot be copied, and the answer given by HR is only one-sided. [2] The International Labor Organization's 2025 report shows that the global youth unemployment rate has risen to 12.4 percent, and about 0.257 billion young people are completely unemployed. [3] A survey by the New York Federal Reserve believes that the underemployment rate of recent college graduates in the United States has exceeded 40 percent and will continue to rise. Judging from these data, everything seems to be heading for a deeper pessimism.

This is certainly a valuable point of view. However, Argentine writer Martín Caparrós has suggested that macro data is now being used as a technique to cool down real problems. Data can definitely present a certain fact, and society must respect the situation it shows, but we must be wary of a phenomenon that treats data as a refuge for real events, thus ignoring individual experience and perspective.

There is also a view that in the foreseeable future, most companies do not lack job seekers. Since there are always people to choose from, why bother to understand the transferable skills brought about by the odd job experience? What I want to remind is that enterprises are not inanimate and unconscious abstract machines. After all, they are a collection of emotional and thinking human beings. The so-called recruitment standards are originally shaped by specific people.

Underemployment is no longer a unique dilemma for a generation of young people or a country, but an increasingly common global phenomenon.A newly graduated college student may temporarily enter the part-time job market, and a middle-level enterprise may also deliver takeout food and drive a car between two full-time jobs. Their choice should not be to push open a one-way door. Similarly, a person who has been making a living in the gig market for a long time should also have the opportunity to be seen in other fields with experience.A truly healthy labor market should allow people to move between different tracks, rather than treating the odd job experience as a slippage.

At a time when artificial intelligence is reshaping the way work is done and the global economy is full of uncertainty, no one has the standard answer to the future of their career. But it is precisely because of this that we need to rethink: how an experience and a person's value should be measured.

Reference material:

[1]2024 College Students' Employability Survey Report Internship Experience is https://cueb.ncss.cn/ncss/jydt/jy/202408/20240828/2293306656.html of the Important Factors for Successful offer

[2]Employment and Social Trends 2026https://www.ilo.org/publications/flagship-reports/employment-and-social-trends-2026

[3]The Labor Market for Recent College GraduatesThe Labor Market for Recent College Graduates - FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK