Latest / In The Loop / EP18 - What Happens To Entry-Level Jobs In The AI Era? State Of Talent Report 2025

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EP18 - What Happens To Entry-Level Jobs In The AI Era? State Of Talent Report 2025 · In The Loop

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  I mean, I experienced in the early realities of AI automation
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  on the job market. It looks like it it's in the
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  loop with Jack Horton. Welcome back to in the leap
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  today I I'm quite literally in a large shed on the coast of
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  Scotland. I'm actually on holiday and no
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  matter what we have to have an episode go out.
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  But today's episode is a really interesting one because you know
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  if you've been listening to episodes every single week that
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  whenever real reports or real data actually gets shared on
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  things like employment and the impact of AI in society, we like
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  to discuss them here and in the leap.
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  And this report is called the State of Talent Report 2025.
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  It's based on tracking up 650 million professionals in over 80
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  million organizations. And this data plus the World
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  Economic Forum's latest employment report is really
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  interesting. And it's just the rise of AI and
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  automation 2025 is starting to lead to an erosion of, let's
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  say, traditional early level roles.
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  And it's creating more probably can be summarized as a widening
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  disconnect between workforce automation and early career job
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  prospects. And as companies start to
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  delegate probably more routine tasks to this, you know, AI,
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  digital labor, it appears that companies are now starting to
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  cut back on junior highs and training programs that so many
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  people relied on to get into work.
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  And this is sparked a lot of debate.
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  You know, is this AI or is this just macroeconomic factors like
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  let's call it post COVID stabilization, Trump a slowing
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  global economy or is AI to blame?
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  And what will the impact of all of this actually be on the early
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  free education and the future of work as a result?
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  And 3rd, do employers have AI guess structural obligation to
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  develop the next generation of talent OR do we just let AI
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  replace many junior roles and tasks?
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  So in today's episode, we're going to cover all those
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  different questions. And I think the best place to
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  start is the data because new data shows a big drop in junior
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  hiring across, for example, the tech industry.
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  This signal fire report from entry level hiring has, I mean
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  almost completely collapsed with new graduate recruitment in
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  technology companies down by over 50% since 2019.
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  And by 2024, recent grads made-up about 7% of new hires.
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  Major technology companies, which is half of the pre
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  pandemic number and starts up to seeing a very similar trend with
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  new garage representing under 6% of new hires.
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  Even as overall hiring has rebounded over the last few
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  years after the pandemic, junior hiring has not seen that same
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  trend. It just keeps getting curved and
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  cuts and cuts. And he's lagging much further
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  behind, say, mid and senior level hiring.
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  And the result is potentially this lost generation of people
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  who in finance, media, technology can't get a job.
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  And the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 that
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  just came out found that many of the vastest declining roles are
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  clerical or entry level administrative positions, which
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  have historically been filled by, say, young workers.
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  And LinkedIn also found in their 2025 workforce data, the entry
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  level hiring is also completely slowing down.
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  South in the US, overall hiring was down 6% year on year and
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  over 2025. And young grads are those that
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  are being hit disproportionately.
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  And a good example of this is the unemployment rate for new
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  college graduates is at 30% compared to only 18% for the
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  general workforce, which is a big sign of new graduates
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  struggling to find that, I guess, early foothold into the
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  employment matter. And there seems to be this big
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  rise in what Signal Fire called, I guess, an experience paradox
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  where companies post junior ads, but then fill them with someone
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  that's had much more experience than that person, bypassing what
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  you actually consider as an entry level come today.
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  And there's this increasing obsession now with this lean
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  business type. And a lot of that is driven by
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  AI and AI agents, which is this idea that a company can be run
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  by less people. And as a result, employers are
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  increasingly demanding, it seems, new hires who can be
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  productive, say from day one, which again, leaves a very
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  little tolerance for on the job learning and new hires that just
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  haven't got that much experience.
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  And taking me wrong, a lot of this makes sense.
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  AI is now performing many of the roles that an entry level new
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  hire just that a college student might have performed, you know,
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  in previous eras, junior staff might spend their early careers
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  doing very routine work. Imagine drafting documents and
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  pulling data together and spreadsheets, reviewing a
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  document, doing very basic analysis.
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  And many of those tasks might have been seen as frustrating
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  and drudgery by more experienced hires is now just handled by AI
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  tools really quickly. An agent can civilize a report
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  in a single prompt. An AI agent again can just
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  review data and identify some basic trends.
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  And a LinkedIn economic Prof analysis found that 63% of exact
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  expect AI to tape many of those mundane tasks that entry level
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  employees used to do over the next three to four years.
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  And the Brookings Institute's research found that AI will
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  replace over half the tasks carry out by entry level roles
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  such as market research, analysis, design, sales reps.
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  And equally that research found that are senior roles which
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  involve lots of judgement and problem solving in team
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  management. How up to five times lower risk
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  of AI automation replacement. So if you take anything away
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  from the data right now, it says that automation is going to take
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  a lot of the bottom rungs of the career ladders away, which are
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  built on routine, frustrating tasks.
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  So what does this mean for graduates in reality and also
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  just society as a whole? So I think grubs are going to
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  increasingly face new types of barriers to succeed.
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  For example, it's very easy to see the end of, you know, that
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  learn on the job opportunity, or at least there's going to be
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  less of them. For decades, entry level roles
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  were critical stepping stones to building experience.
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  I think it will change the way people look at education and
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  opportunities because I think many people are going to how to
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  re evaluate that premise of say, formal education.
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  Because if entry level roles are vanishing and degrees are losing
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  their value, what fills the gap? Many people might just bypass
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  school and education and university completely, pursue
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  boot camps that are becoming increasingly popular, might go
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  into entrepreneurship or other types of tasks.
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  And what worries me about this really is that access isn't
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  created equally. Who gets to explore AI?
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  Children's school to learn the school sets and the
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  proficiencies that employees now look for, Who can afford special
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  certifications? These big new gaps that are
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  emerging are only going to make inequalities even wider.
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  And it will just marginalized groups that are already
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  marginalized. So what AI can easily do if we
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  don't do something about it is introduce a new filter at this
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  gate of employment and make it even more difficult for people
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  to get an opportunity. Because entry level roles,
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  they're not just low cost labour, they're about a initial
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  building block in a talent pipeline that over the years
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  produces managers and leaders, innovators, the people that
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  build society together. And it's not hard to imagine
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  that many of the companies that are talking about automating
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  their workplace in the future will be frustrated at the exact
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  same problem of not having enough talent to fill critical
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  roles that AI can't take. I think for me, the most
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  important thing for us to tackle and tackle really early is this
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  idea of economic mobility. Historically, an entry level
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  opportunity is an opportunity for people to get into the
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  middle class or who are in the middle class.
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  And if AI eliminates that step, the cost of getting started
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  shifts to an individual, often through unpaid internships or
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  gig work or very costly grad programs.
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  And those from a less privileged background always hit the
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  hardest in that situation. And this comes on to this idea
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  that is gaining traction, that sustaining a workforce isn't
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  just the responsibility of the government, it's actually the
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  responsibility or a moral responsibility of employers
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  broadly. You could call this a social
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  license to operate. Just like companies are expected
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  to reduce their environmental in part, they are going to have to
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  invest into human capital. So the question is, should
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  companies solve this problem? Well, there are a lot of
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  historical precedents. The century skilled trades, say
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  electricians or carpenters, have relied on apprenticeships.
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  It's very normal. Novices will earn and learn
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  under the job, under the guidance of a master that helps
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  them learn their skill in medicine.
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  No one questions how important it is to have a residency for a
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  new Doctor to gain really important experience.
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  And many European countries about apprenticeships of
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  geosystems of education for a long time.
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  For example, young people might split their time between paid
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  work and training and education. In Germany, Austria and
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  Switzerland, apprenticeships are very common in white collar
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  fields like IT and banking, not just blue collar trades.
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  And this is something that's become popular in the UK too
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  recently. And there are many government
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  incentives and industry collaboration that supports
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  these systems. And an outcome of this has often
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  been lower unemployment for young people and a more healthy
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  skill to work transition. For instance, in Switzerland,
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  around 70% of students go to apprenticeships and employees
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  across industries take on trainees as a matter of their
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  responsibility. It's a cultural not.
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  So what might a realistic policy mandate for, let's say, the
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  future of education look like in the age of AI?
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  Now there are different approaches we could tempt each
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  with, I guess varying levels of force a government would have to
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  take to enforce it. Policy makers could get certain
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  employers above a certain size or in very AI heavy sectors to
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  publicly report their early career talent numbers and the
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  types of training programs they offer.
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  A stronger step might require companies that have a certain
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  number of employees to dedicate a percentage of their workforce
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  as early career hires. For instance, I really could say
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  that any tech company would send 500 to 1000 employees must have
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  at least 2% or 5% of its staff in approved career or early
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  career training programs. Or similar to the UK model,
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  government could require companies to spend a certain
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  amount or a percentage of a payroll or revenue on approved
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  training programs. Or if you don't want to do that,
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  pay a certain amount into a fund for workforce development.
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  Now, yes, there's going to be many pushbacks against these
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  ideas and you know, some of these I find more challenging
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  than others, and I'm not saying any of them are the right
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  solution, but it's important to think and reflect about places
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  it's working in the world and the cost of inaction.
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  So upon reflection, taken together, the signals in 2025
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  are showing a a growing consensus that action is going
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  to have to be needed to preserve early career development in the
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  face of major automation. While no country has yet called
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  the trigger on this outright Monday that every AI heavy
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  company must do certain things to support the workforce, I
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  think pieces are going to start to slowly move together in that
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  directorate. Governments are already setting
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  up a lot of infrastructure, task forces, pilot programs, funding,
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  and companies are experimenting with many different solutions.
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  And the conversation is shifting from whether this is a problem
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  to solve to know how we should solve it.
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  Now, I hope this culminates in some form of Monday or quasi
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  Monday, or just more of a culture of investment in the
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  workforce and the future of organizational society and
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  culture. And if we don't think about this
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  soon, maybe 2025 will be that inflection point where we
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  recognized a disconnect and refused to do anything about it.
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  Now, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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  Thank you for listening. This is an elite for Jack
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  Horton. I'll see you next week.