We’ve heard a lot about how students graduating from college now have an uphill battle ahead of them. However, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), Gen Z might actually be doing better than the generations before.

According to the Institute, despite what it may seem, the labor market for young college graduates is currently stronger than it was before the pandemic, and it’s been that way for quite a while.

While it’s certainly been tough, Gen Z has seen a faster bounce-back in the labor market than any economic recovery in recent history. The generation has also seen stronger wage growth.

The unemployment rate for young college graduates, which the group defines as workers that fall between the ages of 21 and 24, has recovered more than 2.5 times faster than after the Great Recession that impacted millennials in 2008.

Altogether, 65.2% of young college graduates are employed, while only 10% are out of school but not working. That percentage of employed graduates has been above its pre-pandemic level (64.3% in February 2020) consistently since February 2023.

Those recent college graduates aren’t just finding jobs flipping burgers. They’re finding good jobs. According to the report, young Gen Z graduates have experienced inflation-adjusted wage growth faster than any other generation in at least the past 30 years. Young graduates saw wage losses of 4.9% after the Great Recession, losses of 4.3% between 2001 and 2005, and losses of 7.5% between 1990 and 1994.

To put that in perspective, millennials who graduated during the 2008-2009 recession still haven’t been able to recover from chronic unemployment. They also might never actually recover from the career setbacks caused by the Great Recession. That lack of earnings has been a huge blow for the generation, which has delayed everything from buying homes to things like marriage and having children.

For Gen Z, however, things are looking good. Nearly 83% of employers anticipate increasing their hiring or minting their hiring of the class of 2024, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Industries looking to hire recent grads include manufacturing, utilities, and professional services. Meanwhile, chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers as well as computer and electronics manufacturers plan to decrease their hiring this year over last; however, those industries had significant hiring increases in 2023.

According to the EPI, the findings about Gen Z highlight “the tremendous role that large fiscal relief and recovery packages, including expanded unemployment insurance coverage and aid to state and local governments, had on healing the labor market after the pandemic recession.”

While the Institute claims that previous generations were “left behind by policy,” the government actions coming out of the pandemic had a positive effect on this next generation.

All that said, it’s not all good news. The EPI notes that gender and racial wage gaps are still large, even among the most recent graduates. On average, women are paid $5.30 less per hour than their male counterparts, while Black and Hispanic workers are paid between $3.24 and $2.07 less than white workers.

To help Gen Zers maintain their momentum, the group says that racial and gender pay gaps need to be addressed, and that “policymakers must prioritize full employment, increase the federal minimum wage, strengthen and enforce labor standards, and make it easier for workers to come together and form unions.”