Young workers are losing faith in the job hunt

The vibe check got ugly

Gallup’s new report says young Americans have done a full 180 on the job market. In 2025, just 43% of people ages 15 to 34 said it was a good time to find a job locally — a huge drop that leaves them 21 points behind older adults.

That’s not just a random mood swing. Since 2023, optimism among young workers has fallen 27 points, with the steepest drops among young women, college-educated workers, and people still not in full-time jobs. In other words: the folks who usually feel the most mobile are suddenly acting like the ladder disappeared.

Why investors should care

When job confidence falls, people tend to spend less, job-hop less, and negotiate less. That matters for ad spend, e-commerce, cloud budgets, and pretty much any business that depends on consumers or a healthy labor market showing some swagger.

The report lands at the same time employers are slashing plans. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said April job cuts hit 83,387, up 38% from March, while hiring plans fell to 10,049 — down 69%. Tech led the layoffs parade, and AI kept popping up as the excuse, which is either the future arriving or a very convenient scapegoat.

The AI-shaped shadow

The article points out that the restructuring wave has spread across big tech names like Amazon, Meta, Oracle, and Snap as they shuffle money toward AI infrastructure and automation. That’s the awkward part: the same tools meant to drive future growth are also making entry-level workers wonder if there’ll be a rung left on the ladder.

Big picture: if younger workers are this downbeat while older Americans stay relatively cheerful, that’s a weirdly split-screen economy — and split-screen economies can make markets twitchy.