NEW YORK — Recent college graduates are walking into a increasingly frosty job market this year, as a new survey reveals that nearly one in four hiring managers plan to scale back or completely eliminate the hiring of Class of 2026 graduates.

According to a survey of 1,000 U.S. hiring managers conducted by ResumeTemplates.com, 23% of companies plan to take on fewer fresh college graduates than last year, with 5% refusing to hire any 2026 grads at all. The pullback comes as entry-level positions face intense pressure from artificial intelligence alongside heavy employer scrutiny over the workplace readiness of young applicants.

The Rise of AI Consolidation

The primary structural threat to the entry-level job pipeline is automation. The survey found that 45% of companies have already restructured their workflows so that a single senior employee utilizing AI tools can absorb the responsibilities of multiple junior roles. Furthermore, 55% of organizations have proactively redirected portions of their entry-level hiring budgets directly toward financing AI implementations.

Employers cite faster onboarding, continuous 24/7 availability, and lower costs as the main factors driving them to train algorithms over training recent graduates.

“We spent two months training last year’s grads side by side and still lost time and money,” one anonymous manager stated in the report. “We are not doing that again. This year, we are investing in AI.”

Concerns Over Basic Skills and Professionalism

Aside from technological displacement, hiring managers expressed deep frustration with the perceived lack of professional skills among the incoming workforce.

A staggering 69% of managers cited specific character concerns regarding recent graduates, specifically highlighting deficiencies in work ethic (33%), professionalism (32%), and motivation (31%). Nearly a quarter of respondents also reported that new grads possess an entitled attitude and unrealistic expectations.

Beyond attitude, employers are noticing sharp drops in foundational office skills:

• 76% of managers claim recent graduates require help reading routine work documents like memos, budgets, or contracts.
• 75% say that even if grads can read the words, they struggle to comprehend what the documents actually mean for their daily tasks.
• 41% state that new grads are incapable of drafting a standard professional email.

This combination of missing technical competence and perceived unreliability has deeply shaken corporate trust. Only 17% of hiring managers say they fully trust fresh grads to interact with customers unsupervised, leaving the remaining 83% to restrict grads to routine internal duties or require senior supervision.

Finding a Way Forward

Despite the grim figures, career experts emphasize that the entry-level market is not entirely closed—it is simply shifting. 65% of hiring managers still plan to maintain or increase their new grad hiring volumes, though the criteria for standing out has changed.

Julia Toothacre, Chief Career Strategist at ResumeTemplates.com, advises job-seeking graduates to proactively address experience gaps and adapt to the automation trend. “New grads can and should use a variety of experiences on their resume, such as volunteer work, student leadership, or involvement in sports,” Toothacre noted, emphasizing that framing traditional skills alongside basic AI fluency will be critical to navigating the modern market.