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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Liberal arts majors, such as English, are among the most versatile, with many graduates working outside their fields.
- Hiring rates for recent college graduates have dropped significantly, with engineering majors seeing the largest decline.
As hiring has declined across nearly every field, new data suggests that liberal arts graduates may be best suited to adapt.
LinkedIn provided an analysis of its hiring data to Investopedia, comparing hiring rates and versatility across the 20 most popular majors among recent bachelor’s degree graduates.
The analysis compares the LinkedIn hiring rate for each major’s core industries in April 2026 versus December 2019. Versatility measures the share of those who graduated from 2022–2024 and are working outside of their major’s top industries.
Why This Matters
Students should understand the job prospects for their major. College can be expensive, and many students take out student loans to afford it. Unemployment or underemployment after graduation could make it harder to repay debt and afford basic expenses.
The analysis found hiring has fallen for all 20 majors since December 2019. Health professions and education majors held up best, with hiring down 16%, the smallest decreases of any major. But both rank near the bottom in versatility: just 21% of health professions graduates and 34% of education graduates work outside their field’s top two industries.
English is the most versatile major: 69% of its graduates work outside the field’s top two industries, the highest share of any major. Hiring for English majors has fallen 21% since December 2019, near the middle of the 20 majors.
Visual and performing arts, another liberal arts field, ranks second for versatility, but its hiring has fallen 23%.
Engineering majors are in a tougher spot, with the largest hiring drop at 25%. Engineering also ranks low on versatility: about 41% of its graduates work outside the field’s top two industries, third-lowest among the 20 majors.
Not all engineering majors are struggling for work. In the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate in 2024 was 2.2% for aerospace engineering majors and 2.3% for civil engineering majors, both below the 4.2% average for all recent graduates. Computer engineering majors fared far worse, at 7.8%, a gap some economists tie to the field’s high exposure to AI.
Versatility Is Essential In This Labor Market
As jobs for recent college graduates change to incorporate new technologies, versatility is an advantage, LinkedIn researchers say.
The U.S. labor market has been stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” pattern for more than a year, and recent college graduates have borne the brunt of it.
Experts blame the shift to remote work in many offices for some of the problems younger workers face. The shift has made employers wary of hiring recent graduates for online positions. AI has also absorbed some roles once reserved for new graduates, and is expected to continue eroding prospects for entry-level work.
A tighter labor market has increased the competition for available positions. The average number of applicants per job on LinkedIn has roughly doubled since 2022. Majors that translate their degrees across varied types of work will become more popular in the coming years, according to LinkedIn.
Read the original article on Investopedia
