Hiring for the college Class of 2025 is expected to increase 7.3% over hiring for the Class of 2024, according to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 survey.
JOB OUTLOOK 2025 SLIDES
The Job Outlook 2025 report is presented in slide format; slides can be downloaded and used as is, or adapted with permission.View the slides
This positive news follows a full year of decreases in the hiring of new college graduates. (See Figure 1.) In addition, more than 40% of employers report that they plan to increase the salaries for bachelor’s degree graduates.
Among responding employers, 27% are planning to increase their hiring this year, while 57.1% expect to maintain their hiring.
Those increasing their hiring cite their commitment to succession planning and maintaining a full talent pipeline and company growth as the primary drivers.
The Job Outlook survey is a forecast of hiring intentions of employers as they relate to new college graduates. Data for the Job Outlook 2025 survey were collected from August 5, 2024, through September 16, 2024. Of the 237 total respondents, 162 were NACE employer members, representing 19.2% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2025 survey was also distributed to nonmember companies, from which an additional 75 responses were received. Job Outlook 2025 is available on NACEWeb.
Kevin Gray is an associate editor at NACE. He can be reached at 
