Minnesota's new graduates are meeting a job market no report can see

Few states have more riding on this than Minnesota. Our economy runs on large corporate employers, and those employers hire their analysts, engineers and coordinators out of Carlson, St. Thomas, Macalester and the state's technical colleges every fall. Right now, in offices across this metro, 2027 budgets are being written. A budget that trims graduate hiring will feel free next year. The bill arrives around 2029, when the juniors who were never hired would have become the experienced people who review the work and handle the hard cases, and buying AI-skilled experience on the open market already runs three to four times average pay, by Gartner's count.