Engineering Graduates Face Steepest Hiring Decline in Challenging U.S. Job Market

An engineering degree, once considered a reliable path to a high-paying career, is no longer a guarantee of employment in today's challenging U.S. job market, Danielle Chemtob reported for Forbes.

Engineering graduates are encountering a more competitive job market despite the field's long-standing reputation for strong employment prospects.

Hiring of new graduates overall fell 20% between December 2019 and April 2026, according to LinkedIn data provided exclusively to Forbes.

Engineering graduates experienced the steepest decline among the 20 most common majors on LinkedIn's platform, with hiring dropping 25%.

"There was a time when we told everyone to code, and we thought that was a very safe career path," said Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn's Head of Economics for the Americas. "

Now we see that unemployment among graduates with computer science degrees is relatively elevated."