Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sounded the alarm on what many recent graduates already know—getting a job right out of college is really hard right now. Speaking at his regular press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Powell called it “an interesting labor market.” He said people “kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs.” Overall, the “job finding rate” is very low, Powell said, but then again, so is the layoff rate. “So you’ve got a low firing, low hiring environment.”

Recent labor reports indicate that, indeed, it’s hard out there. The Black unemployment rate climbed above 7% in August, while the rate for recent graduates has surged above the overall rate for the first time in recent history.

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