Remote work is worsening youth unemployment, New York Fed finds

Morsa Images | Digitalvision | Getty Images Both remote work and youth unemployment are on the rise since the Covid pandemic — and the two trends are related, according to new research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The unemployment rate for young college graduates swelled to 5.6% in March 2026 from 3.6% in March 2019, the New York Fed economists wrote in a blog post published Monday. They estimate that remote work can account for 64% of the recent increase. "Employers may not want to hire fresh graduates onto distributed teams because it is more difficult to teach them the requisite skills from afar," the authors said.