Computer science grads are leaving university into the weakest market for new software developers in years. They are answering it by selling AI skills rather than coding alone. That is the finding of an Associated Press report by Heather Hollingsworth and Nicky Forster, published on 24 September 2026. By the AP’s own analysis, recent computer science and computer engineering graduates have a jobless rate of about 7.1%.
The story is not simply that the jobs have gone. Colleges told the AP that most computer science grads still find work in the end. What has changed is who hires them and what they are hired to do. The tech giants that once made offers to students who had not even applied are posting far fewer software roles. Smaller firms outside the tech industry are taking some of the slack, and they want someone who can show them what to do with AI.
This article sets the AP report against the data behind it: the New York Fed’s figures by major, Indeed’s job postings index, the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and a new US Census Bureau paper. It also covers the AI skills employers ask for and the extra barriers facing international students. For the recruitment side of the same squeeze, see our look at the AI hiring doom loop. For how workers in 37 countries feel about it, see Pew’s AI job loss survey.
Table of contents
- What the AP Found About Computer Science Grads in 2026
- The Coding Boom That Pulled Computer Science Grads In
- What the Data Says About Computer Science Grads’ Prospects
- The AI Skills Employers Now Want From Computer Science Grads
- Who Is Hiring Computer Science Grads Now
- International Computer Science Grads and the H-1B Squeeze
- How Colleges Are Retraining Computer Science Grads for AI
- What Employers Should Take From the Computer Science Grads Squeeze
- A Practical Plan for Computer Science Grads Entering the AI Job Market
- What to Watch Next for Computer Science Grads
- Computer Science Grads: Frequently Asked Questions
- References and Further Reading
What the AP Found About Computer Science Grads in 2026
The AP report opens with one graduate’s search and widens out to national numbers. It draws on interviews with students, professors and the Computing Research Association, as well as its own analysis of federal survey data. Together they describe computer science grads who trained for one job market and graduated into another.
Hundreds of applications, then one conversation
Jack Zemke was studying computer science at Tulane University and had sent out hundreds of job applications. Most of them “disappeared into the void”, the AP reports. With graduation days away, he was thinking about moving back in with his parents. His break came from a group project on an AI-powered search tool, which he was showing off at an engineering conference.
An employee of a civil engineering firm came over. “We’re not like the most on top of trends, but we know that AI is becoming a big thing,” Zemke recalled the man saying. “We need somebody to be essentially an evangelist.” Zemke replied: “I’m your man.” He spent a year at the firm and was hired this summer by an AI start-up. He is 23.
A jobless rate around 7.1%
The AP puts the jobless rate for recent computer science and computer engineering graduates at around 7.1%. It adds a comparison that would have sounded absurd five years ago. Graduates in philosophy, art history and ethnic studies now have higher employment rates than computer science grads. During the coding boom, the AP notes, computer science students were getting job offers without even applying.
Most still find work, but not at the tech giants
Schools say most of their computer science grads do end up employed. The difference is the employer. Increasingly, the AP reports, the firms hiring are “not tech giants but smaller businesses looking for help figuring out what to do with AI”. Zemke described the mood at the start-up end of the market. “These jobs are expecting you to be able to jump in and kind of operate on the frontier,” he said. “There’s so much churn. People are getting laid off. People are leaving. It really feels like a total frenzy right now.”
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Jobless rate, recent computer science and computer engineering graduates | About 7.1% | AP analysis |
| Employment gap, ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed jobs | 19% below trend (15% a year earlier) | Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Aug 2026 |
| Chance of first job, most AI-exposed tenth of majors | Down 5 percentage points | US Census Bureau, Sep 2026 |
| First-job earnings, same group | Down 13% | US Census Bureau, Sep 2026 |
| Recent computer science and computer engineering graduates, 2024 | About 362,000, triple a decade earlier | AP analysis |
| Computer and information sciences enrolment, four-year colleges | Down 8.4% (spring 2026) | National Student Clearinghouse |
| Indeed software development postings, 18 Sep 2026 | 66.9% below the Feb 2022 peak | Indeed Hiring Lab |
The Coding Boom That Pulled Computer Science Grads In
The jobless rate partly reflects how many students the boom attracted. Hiring surged during the pandemic as work, shopping and school moved online. The AP notes that software development postings on Indeed peaked in early 2022. A decade of growth meant the number of recent computer science and computer engineering graduates tripled, to about 362,000 in 2024.
What Indeed’s postings index shows
Indeed’s Hiring Lab publishes a daily index of job postings by occupation, set to 100 on 1 February 2020. Its software development series hit 233.8 on 28 February 2022, more than double the pre-pandemic level. By 1 January 2023 it had fallen to 130.3, and a year later to 72.6. The low point was 61.1 on 17 May 2025. On 18 September 2026 it stood at 77.3. That is 66.9% below the peak and 22.7% below February 2020.
Bar widths are each value divided by the 233.8 peak. The series has recovered slightly from its 2025 low, but it remains well under where it started before the pandemic. For computer science grads, that means competing for fewer openings than existed when many of them chose the degree.
Why the boom unwound
The AP names two forces. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta and Google are turning to AI for a larger share of their code writing. Big employers such as Amazon are cutting staff as spending on AI accelerates. A Federal Reserve analysis of the Indeed data, the AP adds, shows far fewer software development jobs are being posted. The work that once trained junior developers is the work AI coding tools now do first.
The trend is not only about AI
Some of the fall is a return to normal after an unusual hiring spree, when low interest rates and pandemic demand pushed tech firms to over-hire. In a February 2026 follow-up, the Stanford researchers found no strong support for interest rates explaining the gap for young workers in AI-exposed jobs, though they accept that other factors played a part before 2024. But anyone reading the postings chart should remember that the 2022 peak was itself an outlier. Computer science grads are being measured against the best entry-level market the industry has ever had.
What the Data Says About Computer Science Grads' Prospects
Three independent datasets point the same way, and each measures something different. The New York Fed looks at outcomes by degree subject. The Stanford Digital Economy Lab looks at payroll records by age and job. The Census Bureau tracks individual graduates into their first jobs. None of them is perfect on its own, but together they make the AP’s picture hard to dismiss.
New York Fed: outcomes by major
The New York Fed’s “Labor Market for Recent College Graduates” covers graduates aged 22 to 27. Its outcomes-by-major table uses 2024 American Community Survey data. Computer engineering has one of the highest unemployment rates of any major, at 7.8%, and computer science is not far behind at 7.0%. Both are above art history (6.7%), philosophy (5.1%) and ethnic studies (4.9%). The average across all majors is 4.2%.
| Major (graduates aged 22 to 27, 2024) | Unemployment rate | Underemployment rate |
|---|---|---|
| Computer engineering | 7.8% | 15.8% |
| Computer science | 7.0% | 19.1% |
| Art history | 6.7% | 45.3% |
| Physics | 6.6% | 29.1% |
| Philosophy | 5.1% | 47.1% |
| Ethnic studies | 4.9% | 49.6% |
| All majors | 4.2% | 39.4% |
The underemployment column tells a different story. It is the share of graduates in jobs that do not usually need a degree. Only 19.1% of computer science grads in work are underemployed, against 39.4% for all majors and nearly half of philosophy or ethnic studies graduates. So computer science grads are more likely to be out of work, but those who are working are far more likely to be in graduate-level jobs.
Pay still favours those who get in
The same New York Fed table gives early-career median wages for full-time workers aged 22 to 27. Computer science pays $87,000 and computer engineering $90,000, against $58,000 across all majors. Employers expect to keep paying well. In the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Winter 2026 salary survey, computer sciences was the top-paid group for the class of 2026, at a projected $81,535, up 6.9%. NACE expected overall hiring to be flat.
Bar widths are each wage divided by the $90,000 top value. The gap is why the degree still attracts students despite the headlines. It also explains the pressure: the reward for landing a job is high, and so is the number of computer science grads chasing each opening.
Stanford: a 19% gap for workers aged 22 to 25
The Stanford Digital Economy Lab’s “Canaries in the Coal Mine?” research uses ADP payroll data. Its August 2026 update, by Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar and Ruyu Chen, finds that employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed jobs is about 19% below where it would be had it kept pace with less-exposed jobs. A year earlier the gap was 15%. Software development is one of the exposed occupations the AP cites.
The researchers stress that they see no widespread job losses across the economy. The gap works mainly through fewer young people being hired, not more being let go. It is concentrated in jobs where AI tends to automate tasks rather than help the worker, and experienced staff in the same jobs have not seen a similar fall.
Census Bureau: a hit like graduating in a recession
A September 2026 Census Bureau working paper, “Graduating into Disruption”, follows graduates using administrative records. Its authors, Cody Orr, Lee C. Tucker and Lawrence Warren, find that outcomes for the most AI-exposed majors began to diverge right after ChatGPT launched in late 2022. For the most exposed tenth of majors, the chance of a first job fell by five percentage points and first-job earnings fell by 13%.
The paper says that earnings drop “is comparable in magnitude to the earnings losses associated with graduating into a large recession”. This is the comparison the AP repeats. Roughly half of the fall came from lower pay within the same industries. The rest came from graduates moving into lower-paid sectors such as restaurants and retail. The effect fades as graduates move further into their careers, but it stays large for the most exposed majors.
The AI Skills Employers Now Want From Computer Science Grads
If entry-level coding is being automated, what is left for computer science grads to be hired for? The people the AP interviewed gave consistent answers. None of them is “write more code faster”. Each is about judgement, context or the ability to bring AI into an organisation that does not yet use it.
Oversight, not autocomplete
Tracy Camp, executive director and CEO of the Computing Research Association, told the AP that industry now wants workers who can oversee AI tools and not blindly accept their outputs. Those skills are more common in seasoned workers. That is the core of the problem for new computer science grads. Checking an AI tool’s code needs the experience that junior roles used to provide.
The CRA is worried enough to have contacted industry leaders, urging them to invest in entry-level workers. “If they don’t change how hiring is currently happening, they’re not going to have mid-level career people in a few years,” Camp said. We made a similar argument in why AI won’t replace developers, but developers who use AI will: the tools raise the value of people who can judge their output.
Middle management on day one
Nicholas Mattei, an associate professor of computer science at Tulane who chairs a committee studying AI for the Association for Computing Machinery, has watched students’ job searches closely. When he reads some of the job adverts, his reaction is “Really?”
“All the companies are coming back to us and saying, ‘Oh, well you need to train these people even better, and they need to be able to jump into a middle management role as opposed to an introductory or junior developer role,'” Mattei told the AP. “And it’s kind of crazy.”
The AI evangelist
Zemke’s first job shows a third kind of demand. The civil engineering firm did not need another programmer. It needed someone to explain where AI fitted and to champion using it. That is a role more computer science grads may find, especially at smaller companies without an in-house technology team. It rewards communication and a working knowledge of generative AI tools as much as algorithms.
| What employers want | What it means in practice | Who said it |
|---|---|---|
| Oversight of AI tools | Reviewing, testing and correcting AI output instead of accepting it | Tracy Camp, Computing Research Association |
| Readiness above junior level | Taking on scope once given to mid-level staff | Nicholas Mattei, Tulane and ACM |
| An AI evangelist | Showing a non-tech business where AI fits and leading adoption | Civil engineering firm, via Jack Zemke |
| Working “on the frontier” | Picking up new tools fast in teams with high staff churn | Jack Zemke |
| Employer-ready platform skills | Learning a company’s systems and generative AI tools before day one | Georgia Tech and AT&T boot camp |
| AI applied to a sector | Using AI on a specific industry’s problems, even forestry | Fisayo Omojokun, Georgia Tech |
Who Is Hiring Computer Science Grads Now
The AP’s clearest point is that the employer mix has changed. Fewer offers come from the biggest names in tech. More come from businesses that know AI matters but do not know where to start. For computer science grads, that means looking well beyond the usual list of software companies.
Businesses outside tech
Zemke’s civil engineering firm is one example. Georgia Tech gave the AP another. “Earlier this year, we got a call from a forestry company of all things,” said Fisayo Omojokun, associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Computing. “They’re like, ‘Hey, we are in forestry, and we know that AI can help in what we do in different ways.'” Staff who recruit businesses for the college’s job fairs are now reaching out to a wider range of industries.
Engineering postings held up; software did not
Indeed’s data supports this shift. Postings in engineering fields fell from their 2022 highs too, but far less than software development. By 18 September 2026 they were well above their February 2020 levels. Data and IT infrastructure roles, by contrast, fell as hard as software development did.
| Indeed occupation | Index, 18 Sep 2026 | 2022 peak | Change from peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software development | 77.3 | 233.8 | -66.9% |
| Data and analytics | 62.1 | 202.7 | -69.3% |
| IT infrastructure, operations and support | 68.8 | 159.3 | -56.8% |
| Civil engineering | 157.9 | 204.8 | -22.9% |
| Electrical engineering | 146.7 | 185.5 | -20.9% |
| Mechanical engineering | 163.4 | 189.8 | -13.9% |
The index is set to 100 on 1 February 2020 for every occupation, so the figures show change over time, not the number of vacancies. A civil engineering firm posting more jobs is not the same as it posting software jobs. But it is the kind of employer Zemke found, and the kind the AP says is now doing more of the hiring.
What smaller employers can and cannot offer
Smaller employers bring real openings, often with broad responsibility from the first week. They also bring less structure. There may be no graduate scheme, no senior engineer to learn from and no HR team used to hiring technical staff. For computer science grads who are international students, that last gap can be decisive.
International Computer Science Grads and the H-1B Squeeze
International students have enrolled in large numbers in US computer science programmes, and the AP says the market has been especially hard for them. Part of the reason is the shift in who is hiring. Part is US immigration policy.
Why smaller employers avoid sponsorship
Samir Khuller, chair of Northwestern University’s computer science department, told the AP that many of the smaller companies now hiring lack big HR departments with experience of H-1B work visas. International graduates generally need an H-1B visa, sponsored by an employer, to stay and work in the US. A firm that has never sponsored one may simply not try.
Interviews with AI bots
Collins Kibet, a computer science graduate from Kenya, graduated from Southern New Hampshire University. He has sent hundreds of applications and landed only a handful of interviews, mostly with AI bots. In the rare interview with a person, he told the AP, the tone shifts when employers learn they would have to sponsor his visa. “Everybody just keeps quiet,” he said. Unable to find a job, he started his own software company.
Where the $100,000 fee stands
The AP says the Trump administration is seeking to raise the H-1B fee to over $100,000. The legal picture is complicated. The $100,000 fee set by proclamation in September 2025 has been blocked in court. A separate, higher fee is going through rule-making. The timeline below comes from immigration law firm DiRaimondo and Schroeder’s 21 September 2026 update and CNN’s reporting.
| Date | H-1B fee development |
|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | Presidential proclamation sets a $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions |
| 8 Jun 2026 | A federal district court rules the fee unlawful and stops collection |
| 24 Jul 2026 | The First Circuit declines to pause that ruling while the appeal proceeds |
| 24 Aug 2026 | DHS proposes a separate $103,265 fee on cap-subject H-1B petitions |
| 18 Sep 2026 | Proclamation extended through September 2027; the fee remains blocked |
For now, employers are not required to pay the $100,000 fee. But uncertainty is itself a cost. A small firm weighing a sponsored hire against a local one has every reason to wait, and international computer science grads carry that risk into every interview.
How Colleges Are Retraining Computer Science Grads for AI
With entry-level jobs disappearing, colleges are being asked to prepare students to do more from the start. The AP describes schools retooling their programmes, adding training in AI tools and trying internships built around a single employer’s needs.
Georgia Tech’s boot camp before AT&T internships
Georgia Tech professors researched what AT&T wanted and trained students for a month before their internships with the company began. Georgia Tech’s own June 2025 announcement describes a four-week boot camp followed by an eight-week internship. The course covered AT&T’s platforms, enterprise software development and generative AI tools. It ended in a project on network anomaly detection, a core cybersecurity task. AT&T said it intended to offer full-time jobs to interns who were a good fit.
Omojokun told the AP that the college plans to expand the approach into a programme called “Bootcamp to Industry”. The model suits the new market. Employers get computer science grads who already know their systems, and graduates get a clearer route from course to job.
Students are already voting with their feet
Enrolment is falling. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported on 11 August 2026 that undergraduate enrolment in computer and information sciences fell in every major sector in spring 2026. At four-year institutions it was down 8.4%, which the Clearinghouse puts at about 53,000 students. The persistence rate for computer science bachelor’s students, 85.0%, was the lowest among the ten most popular majors.
Bar widths are each fall divided by 12 percentage points. Graduate enrolment in the field had already dropped 14.0% in fall 2025. Meanwhile, engineering and health subjects grew. Fewer entrants will eventually mean fewer computer science grads competing for each job. But that relief is years away for the classes of 2026 and 2027.
What Employers Should Take From the Computer Science Grads Squeeze
This story is usually told from the graduate’s side. It matters just as much to employers, and especially to smaller businesses, which the AP says are doing more of the hiring. There are three lessons for them.
The mid-level pipeline problem
Camp’s warning applies to every organisation, not only tech firms. If nobody hires juniors today, there are no experienced staff to promote in three to five years. AI tools can take on junior tasks, but they do not grow into senior engineers. Firms that keep hiring a few computer science grads now, and pair them with people who can teach judgement, will have a pipeline their competitors lack.
Hiring an AI evangelist without a big HR team
Many small firms want what Zemke’s employer wanted: someone to show them what AI can do. Before hiring, be clear about the role. Is it building tools, choosing and managing vendors, or training staff? An AI strategy exercise can answer that first, so a new graduate is not left to define their own job. Our piece on workforce planning models that are not ready for AI covers the planning side.
Pair new graduates with outside expertise
A single graduate will not have the experience Camp describes. Smaller firms can close that gap by pairing a new hire with technology consulting support for architecture, security and governance, while the graduate learns the business. That gives computer science grads the mentoring their first job needs, and gives the firm someone in-house who understands both its work and its AI tools.
A Practical Plan for Computer Science Grads Entering the AI Job Market
The AP’s interviews suggest a few moves that helped. None guarantees a job, but each answers what employers told the AP they want.
Build one AI project you can explain
Zemke’s break came from a group project on an AI-powered search tool that he could explain to a stranger at a conference. A working project that solves a real problem, with a clear account of what the AI does and where it fails, shows the oversight skill Camp describes. It is also something to talk about when a hiring manager outside tech asks what AI could do for them.
Show you can check the machine
Employers want people who “not blindly accept” AI output, in Camp’s words. Computer science grads can show this directly: tests written for AI-generated code, a documented bug the tool introduced, or a comparison of two tools on the same task. This is evidence of judgement, and judgement is exactly what the market says junior candidates lack.
Widen the employer list
The jobs are increasingly at smaller businesses in engineering, forestry, logistics and other sectors. Their adverts may say “AI specialist” or “digital lead” rather than “software engineer”. University job fairs are already broadening their recruiters, so the options at the careers office may be wider than students expect.
For international students, plan the visa question early
Kibet’s experience shows the cost of leaving sponsorship until the end of an interview. Students who need an H-1B should target employers with a record of sponsorship, and follow the court case and the proposed $103,265 fee as they develop. Starting a company, as Kibet did, brings its own visa questions and needs expert immigration advice.
What to Watch Next for Computer Science Grads
Several data releases due in the coming months will show whether the market for computer science grads is stabilising or getting worse.
New data due this autumn
The New York Fed updates its unemployment figures for recent graduates each quarter, generally in February, May, August and November. Its 6 August release put the rate for all recent graduates at 5.7% in June 2026, against 4.1% for all workers. The outcomes-by-major table is updated each February. The Stanford lab keeps a dashboard of its employment gap, and the Clearinghouse will publish fall 2026 enrolment figures.
Policy and hiring signals
The First Circuit’s ruling on the $100,000 fee, and whether DHS finalises its $103,265 rule, will shape how many employers will sponsor international graduates. The other signal to watch is whether large employers respond to the CRA and bring back entry-level hiring. Georgia Tech’s “Bootcamp to Industry” will show whether employer-specific training can replace the junior roles AI has taken over.
Computer Science Grads: Frequently Asked Questions
Are computer science grads still getting jobs?
Most are, according to the colleges the AP spoke to, but it takes longer and the employers are different. More of the hiring comes from smaller businesses outside the tech industry that want help using AI, rather than from the tech giants.
What is the unemployment rate for computer science grads?
The AP’s own analysis gives a jobless rate of about 7.1% for recent computer science and computer engineering graduates. The New York Fed’s 2024 figures for graduates aged 22 to 27 are 7.0% for computer science and 7.8% for computer engineering, against 4.2% across all majors.
Which AI skills do employers want from computer science grads?
The strongest theme is oversight: reviewing and correcting AI output rather than accepting it. Employers also want graduates who can take on more than a junior role, explain AI to non-technical colleagues and learn a company’s systems and generative AI tools quickly.
Is computer science still worth studying?
The data is mixed. Unemployment is higher than average, but computer science grads who find work earn far more than the average graduate, with a New York Fed early-career median of $87,000, and are much less likely to be underemployed.
Why are international computer science grads struggling more?
Smaller employers often lack HR teams experienced in H-1B sponsorship, and the $100,000 fee plan has added uncertainty even though a court has blocked it. Some graduates report that interviews go quiet once sponsorship comes up.
References and Further Reading
The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Graduating into Disruption: Labor Market Outcomes for AI-Exposed College Majors (US Census Bureau)
Computer Science Enrollment Is Cooling (National Student Clearinghouse)
Job Postings Tracker data (Indeed Hiring Lab on GitHub)
Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States (FRED, St. Louis Fed)
Salaries Expected to Climb for Class of 2026 Grads Despite Flat Hiring (NACE)
AT&T and Georgia Tech Launch Boot Camp-to-Internship Pipeline (Georgia Tech College of Computing)
Trump administration proposes $103,000 fee for H-1B visas (CNN)
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