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It hasn’t been the easiest year to land a job, and in 2026, the employment landscape will likely remain just as volatile. Managers will need to ask themselves how to deploy AI in their business and what skills they really need within the team to achieve efficiency gains. Businesses will also grapple with policy hurdles such as tariffs and base rate normalization, as well as holding consumer spending through the rest of the year.
So far it has been the young workers who struggled the most. According to a Oxford Economics November NoteGeneration Z job seekers, currently aged 13 to 28, face multiple obstacles in landing a position. With the decline in hiring, unemployment rose particularly quickly among those with less experience. So while the overall unemployment rate in the United States is around 4%, 16-19 year olds are struggling with a rate of 14%, while 19-24 year olds are averaging around 9%.
Education is an important factor in young people’s employment prospects: those with a college degree face a slightly lower unemployment rate at the time of writing (just over 6%) than their peers with a high school diploma or some level of college education. While debate rages over whether college degrees are worth the financial burden, it’s clear that employers want to hire people who have demonstrated a commitment to learning.
Enter the trend of “microcredentials,” professional certificates that demonstrate that a candidate is pursuing additional training or qualifications to support the positions they are applying for. According to a $1.3 billion learning platform Courseraover 90% of employers prefer to hire a candidate with a microcredential on their resume over one without one.
According to Coursera CEO Greg Hart, the site’s most popular programs revolve around technology and, specifically, AI. The most notable professional certificates are two from Google: “Foundations of Data Science” and an analytics program called “Data, Data, Everywhere.” Google’s Project Management Certificate, as well as the “Cybersecurity Foundations” course, are also popular.
The platform’s Jobs Skills for 2025 report reveals that employers’ priorities for candidates match the skills individuals are developing: GenAI and HR technology are the most in-demand skills, followed by soft skills such as assertiveness and communicating with stakeholders.
Although a cynic might argue that the CEO of an educational platform would be recommends learning as a way to move up the career ladder, Hart’s opinion is shared by some of the world’s most famous CEOs. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon advises young people to ditch social media and “learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn” instead. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin advises never stop learningand Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio advises young people to “Realize that you know next to nothing. »
“We see a big increase in registrations, usually in January,” says Hart. Fortune in an exclusive interview. “It’s a bit like gym memberships, people are thinking about the new year, a new self, that sort of thing, and education is obviously one of the best ways to reshape yourself.”
Going forward, generative AI will continue to be the expertise of the moment: “It’s currently the most in-demand skill in our history as a company,” says Hart.
However, this does not exclude soft skills and knowledge of other sectors. Health care, for example, is experiencing growing interest. This corresponds to the employment situation in the United States, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that the industry is one of the few sectors currently experiencing job growth.
The lack of general skills is also an obstacle to hiring young people. Last year, a report from technology education provider General Assembly found that less than half of workers (48%) and only 12% of middle managers believe today’s entry-level workers are adequately prepared for the job market. One of the main factors contributing to the lack of trust was that leaders felt new entrants to the workforce lacked skills such as communication, collaboration and adaptability, needed to succeed in their organizations.
“I think as people recognize that AI allows technology to do more and more tasks, the value of the human side of the equation really increases,” Hart added. “Your functional knowledge in a world where AI now performs more functions, it’s not that it’s less important, it’s that it’s no longer as much of a distinguishing factor.”
“The courses I told my sons to take”
Hart practices what he preaches, revealing the classes he advises his two Gen Z sons, ages 22 and 21, to take.
Hart’s eldest son is a finance major, and as such, “I told him to take Gen AI for finance. It’s very practical, it’s directly relevant, and after he finished that – he liked it – the next question was ‘What should I take next?’
“I said, ‘Look through the Gen AI-related certifications and figure out which one makes the most sense to you. I can tell you that being good with data is going to be helpful in your career, so look at how Gen AI can help you be really good at data analysis. What finance majors used to do was just spend time on spreadsheets, so find out how you can use Gen AI to do that more effectively and put it on your resume.’
Hart’s younger son specializes in video game design, and Generation AI was again recommended for abilities such as project management. But Hart added: “I told him, ‘You need to develop as many skills related to game design as possible, so not just your hard skills around coding or multimedia, but also how you tie it all together. Project management, regardless of what you do for a living, is an extremely effective and useful skill, so look at some things around project management, look at some things around entrepreneurship as well.’
