Layoffs and Unemployment Grow Among College Graduates

But amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence and President Trump's targeting of federal agencies, which disproportionately support white-collar jobs, some wonder if a permanent decline for knowledge work has begun. "We're seeing a meaningful transition in the way work is done in the white-collar world," said Carl Tannenbaum, the chief economist of Northern Trust. "I tell people a wave is coming." To date, few industries epitomize the shift of the last few years better than the making of video games, which began a boom in 2020 as couch-bound Americans sought out new forms of home entertainment. The industry hired aggressively before reversing course and embarking on a period of layoffs.