The Millennial Entry -Entrance Work Market, Gen Z shows economic changes

Children just don’t work as they did before – and that could tell us a lot about how the economy changes.

Over the past 15 years, the labor market for young workers has radically changed in some respects – and, in others, has remained remarkably static. But the changing roles that young workers have taken reflect some of the greatest changes in the economy – and, while the entry -level labor market faces its own contractions, could show what could come.

To analyze how hiring and entry -level roles have changed, Business Insider examined the professional data of 2010, 2019 and 2023 for Americans aged 18 to 27 who are employed, not at school, and have a baccalaureate or more.

For 2023, this age group includes the ZERS generation on the job market, while in 2019, it captured both the young generation Z and generation Y and showed what young graduates in their twenties did during the last summit of the labor market before the COVVI-19 pandemic. The 2010 data reflects the millennials roughly at the same stage of life as the generation Z in 2023.

This graph shows how the ten tops occupied by university graduates in our target age group have changed between 2010 and 2023.

Data show how economic trends on a larger scale have shaped the professions in which young workers have studied college. During the millennials, it was a retail job and waitress following the great recession; Generation Z and pre-countryic millennials have gravity to technology.

Today’s Z generation still retains technology but also opens the door to the growing areas of the future, such as health care. This shows how to occupy the first roles that colleges graduates can predict some of the underlying economic trends in different times.

In 2010, for example, the retail seller was the fourth most popular occupation among young workers; About 2.6% of all young workers were retail sellers. But this part and its rank have failed in the coming years, probably due to the rise of online retailers like Amazon and the retail apocalypse in person who left desolate shopping centers and the industry that has enabled more than a million jobs from 2009 to 2019. Another occupation that has seen a fall in accountants and listeners – at the moment, the United States an accountant.

The data also reflects the rapid ascendant of the Big Tech era. Software developers are skyrocketing from the ninth most popular occupation in the third in 2019, and maintained this rank in 2023. About 3.8% of young graduates were software developers in 2019, reaching 4.1% in 2023. It is not a secret for young workers, and in particular the roles of software development, have become more and more attractive for young professionals in college. This is confirmed in the data, which shows hiring to support in this interest.

The appeal of Big Tech can however disappear more recently. The most recent data of 2023 comes from the end of the era of zero interest rate policy. During the big hiring swing after 2020, it was essentially free for companies to borrow and spend for sumptuous advantages and high salaries, especially in technology. In recent years, it has been collapsed and then some. The entry -level labor market has been on its own torsion journey this year, while junior hiring fell and technological progress – in particular AI – have made redundant or non -existent technological starter roles. Indeed, the next cycle of generation Z workers is already embittered on technology.

Looking at the future of work, an aging population needs more nurses and generation Z responds to the call. In 2010, around 3.4% of millennium workers were authorized nurses; Compared, the share of the Zers generation which was nurses authorized in 2023 was around 4.8%. Health roles are already increasingly attractive for generation Z, and it is a sector that only grows – and brings lucrative opportunities with it.

Are you a younger worker who has known some of these professional trends? Contact this journalist at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.