Comment by intended

yes?

I mean, have you seen the options for people graduating right now? How people are behaving?

Or forget the data, look at how the story of the new future technology is being told. The people making it recognize that it has the potential to put swathes of white collar workers out of jobs, and they are openly talking/warning/PR-ing about it.

People in tech and SV, the places which have a underlying culture of near delusional optimism, are talking about trying to avoid being part of "the permanent underclass".

Gambling is up, and prediction markets are being treated as financial investments. Wall street bets is a thing, and outright speculative investments are the hope people have to get ahead.

This is happening in the USA, forget the weaker or smaller economies.

When people see the future as one massive zero sum game, with no way to win by building, then they are going to change how they plan their future.