DOGE, technological layoffs could damage Gen Z careers for years to come

Throughout his university studies, Ryan Kim still had a third cycle match plan. It was first to become a database manager. Then he had to enter the Fintech as a commercial analyst. But during its second year and its junior years, when the technology industry dismissed almost half a million workers, Kim had trouble obtaining an internship. So he looked at a new career: the public service.

Kim was far from the only generation Zer making the same pivot. Last year, depending on the handshake of the site, the share of requests it received from the elders of the college for entry -level openings in technology dropped by 19% compared to 2022, while the share of jobs in the government almost doubled. Even young children saw writing on the wall. In surveys, high school students quote technology giants like Google and Apple as the places they wanted to work most. But last year, in a surprising change, the FBI and NASA ranked above than all these technological companies. The Silicon Valley was out. Capitol Hill was in it.

It took only one request to land an internship paid one year at the Food and Drug Administration. His performance criticisms were good and he planned to stay at the agency after graduating in May. “You hear so many horror stories of people in technology licensed with little notice,” he said. “Government jobs are safe. What attracted me is stability.”

So much for this plan.

This month, with his graduation graduation quickly, Kim suddenly lost his internship in the middle of the ravage across the government, Elon Musk was unleashed in Doge. With most federal hires on an indefinite intake, he rushed to find a job – any job. “It was a huge source of stress,” he said. “Most of the private industry has already hired their graduate students.”

Kim is one of the approximately 2 million students who should graduate this spring in an exceptionally fragile labor market. Things were already difficult for the promotion of 2025, given the strong collapse of hiring in industries such as technology, finance and advice. But now, as Musk takes a chainsaw for the government, many elders from the college are in panic mode. Some have seen their offers in canceled federal agencies; Others have received no words on the jobs they applied for months ago.

It is not only the government positions that take a hit – it is jobs in a whole series of companies, non -profit organizations and universities that depend on federal funding and contracts. And go to higher education – the traditional safeguarding plan for students in times of economic instability – may not even be an option, if the Ministry of Education ends up being unable to provide financial assistance in a timely manner. While the government is reduced to the bone in the name of efficiency, the careers of many genres could suffer for the years to come.

“The impact is on a large scale,” said Saskia Campbell, executive director of Career Services University at George Mason University. “There is this feeling of sorrow, of loss of opportunity. This is the first year that I am worried.”

To worsen things, the prospects are likely to become even more lamentable in the coming months, while the Tariff Wars companies of President Donald Trump want not to recruit. “Two years ago, most of the uncertainty and fear was in Big Tech,” said Briana Randall, executive director of the University of Washington Career and Internship. “Now it seems uncertain in many areas.”

All this leaves new American graduates who do not know where to turn. Sarina Parsapasand, a major in public policy graduated from the University of Southern California this spring, hoped to get a job in government service. But now, given the chaos in Washington, she has gone to try to get a job in the private sector. “I have invoices to pay,” she said. “I cannot take the risk of being in a job that does not guarantee stability for me to live my life.”

It is a feeling that I hear again and again of the students with whom I speak. “The job market seems simply super unstable in almost all areas,” said Katie Schwartz, a second year student in Tulane. “It is less about finding a job that you really like now and more simply to find a job that will give you a stability in employment.”

I am impressed by clear pragmatism old They ring. Isn’t employment stability what you are looking for when you are of average age, with a mortgage to pay and children to support? When I obtained my university degree in 2009 without full -time employment, I was panicked but still idealistic. These children, on the other hand, seem to be hardened by all the chaos they have endured from a very young age. In high school, they saw their parents get into pandemic. At the university, they saw the older students who are difficult to win good jobs during the technological slowdown – or worse, made their offers harshly won at the last minute.

The upheavals and uncertainty have taught today graduates to prepare for the worst. In the past year, said an elderly person from the college, she intentionally neglected her studies so that he can focus exclusively on her job search, sending up to 15 candidates per day. The bustle has paid three offers, including one that she accepted from a government entrepreneur. It is her “dream work”, she said, because it would allow him to make a real difference in the world.

But now, given the chaos in Washington, it looks at the Redlet of the offer and the acceptance of a position in a financing company. (That’s why she asked me not to use her name.) “I try to keep an optimistic perspective,” she told me. But when I ask her what she thinks of taking her first steps in adulthood, she does not seem optimistic at all.

“It makes me quite nervous,” she said. “I think a lot of people in my generation have accepted that we are not going to live the same quality of life that our parents have provided us.”

During hard economic times, we expect to hear stories about people who lose their jobs. But the greatest victims often end up being young people who have no job to lose in the first place. The hiring of frost hurts them, which even prevents them from setting foot in the door. And research shows how long a shadow that can launch someone’s career. Five years after the big recession, my generation of millennials earned 11% less than the Xers generation was at a comparable age. And our net value has dropped 40% delay, forcing us to delay most of the greatest steps in life: buying a house, starting a family, saving for retirement.

The effects go far beyond money. Students who graduated in the 1982 recession, for example, found themselves with fewer children and more divorces than those who have entered better work markets. Even more shocking, according to research, they were more likely to die early. Whatever the efficiency gains that Trump hopes to achieve in Doge, his most sustainable heritage could end up being the damage it inflicts on careers – and perhaps even in life – of its youngest voters.

This leaves the elderly to colleges like Kim Scrambling to find a foot on a job market that accumulates against them. Many companies have already held their entry level positions, if they hire new graduates. And he is now in competition not only with his comrades, but also with the flood of young government employees who were dismissed by DOGE – workers who have more experience than him. As the graduation is given, he tries not to panic. But it is difficult to maintain a feeling of hope when jobs even more paid in the public service are no longer an option.

“I don’t know how my future will happen,” said Kim. And that, when you think about it, is a future that should worry us all.

Aki Ito is a chief correspondent for Business Insider.