LinkedIn Executive Warns AI Threatens Entry-Level Jobs as Graduate Unemployment Rises (nytimes.com) 36
AI is eroding entry-level positions across multiple industries, threatening the traditional career ladder for young professionals, LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer warned Monday. College graduate unemployment has risen 30% since September 2022, compared to 18% for workers overall, according to LinkedIn data. The company's research shows Generation Z workers expressing greater pessimism about their futures than any other age group.
"Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder," wrote Aneesh Raman in a New York Times column, citing examples across technology, law, and retail where AI is replacing tasks traditionally assigned to junior workers. A LinkedIn survey of 3,000 executives found 63% believe AI will eventually handle mundane entry-level tasks, with professionals holding advanced degrees likely facing greater disruption than those without.
Some firms are adapting by redesigning roles. KPMG now assigns recent graduates tax work previously reserved for more experienced employees, while Macfarlanes has early-career lawyers interpreting complex contracts once handled by senior colleagues. Though economic uncertainty also impacts hiring, Raman warned that delayed career entry can cost young workers approximately $22,000 in earnings over a decade.
"Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder," wrote Aneesh Raman in a New York Times column, citing examples across technology, law, and retail where AI is replacing tasks traditionally assigned to junior workers. A LinkedIn survey of 3,000 executives found 63% believe AI will eventually handle mundane entry-level tasks, with professionals holding advanced degrees likely facing greater disruption than those without.
Some firms are adapting by redesigning roles. KPMG now assigns recent graduates tax work previously reserved for more experienced employees, while Macfarlanes has early-career lawyers interpreting complex contracts once handled by senior colleagues. Though economic uncertainty also impacts hiring, Raman warned that delayed career entry can cost young workers approximately $22,000 in earnings over a decade.
If it wasn't AI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If it wasn't AI (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it that you've never run your own business, and have only worked for immense, drab conglomerates that make you think of them as faceless blobs that owe you a job.
Employees are expensive, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. Of course you want to replace them if possible. This may turn out to be impractical.
It certainly isn't happening due to "AI", which is cheap, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. The only bright side about it is, it won't steal from the workplace. It may decide to order 500,000,000 paper clips... but, placing the blame on AI means that managers can dodge responsibility, and after all... managers are expensive, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. They enjoy dodging responsibility as much as you do.
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Of course you want to replace them if possible. This may turn out to be impractical.
It's especially impractical to replace them in a way that leaves them destitute. Three meals from a revolution, my guy.
It certainly isn't happening due to "AI", which is cheap, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy.
Managers are also cheap, in that they don't want to pay for talent, let alone competence.
Money in motion (Score:2)
The large industry of financial, industrial, transportation, real-estate, and their regulators (+ political parties) need "money in motion", "change" and "economic and social dislocations" to have opportunities to invest in, funding, selling advising fees on syndicated loans, political platforms to run on, campaign issues to get donations for, etc. etc.
Having things run smoothly, slow improvements to social and personal economic situations, and a limited number of crisis don't help that above group to keep
Re: If it wasn't AI (Score:2)
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Yes the problem is, who is going to buy the stuff the company produces, if nobody has a job to afford what the company produces?
So if entry level workers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
cannot gain employment to become more experienced where do companies recruit their middle experienced workers from ?
I suspect that they will try to poach them from other companies or other countries that have not replaced new intake workers with AI. I can see this causing a big headache in a few years time.
Re:So if entry level workers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a headache skilled trades (blue collar work, like machinists and plumbers) is facing right now (though for different reasons), as experienced employees age out and retire, and for every 10 retirees, only two young people enter the trade.
the reason is simple (Score:1)
Wages for those kinds of workers have not kept pace with inflation, at all. (This is especially true in places like Florida which have had a massive transformation from "economy like Alabama" to "economy like California or NY", but true in almost all places.) In the last few years wages for entry-level workers in the whole economy have improved a lot. Hence, someone can earn more at McDonalds than as a plumber's apprentice. So nobody wants to be a plumber's apprentice or electrical apprentice.
Simultaneously
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Wages for those kinds of workers have not kept pace with inflation, at all.
Neither has white color work, and it isn't really true. The labor shorting in skilled trades has been going on long enough that companies has already responded with higher wages, and instead of incurring six figures in student loans before you get an entry level job for minimum wage, you get paid while you're learning, and made a middle class living when that's done. Reinvest in additional training and certification, and you can live pretty well. A welder with the right certs can make $300k/year by age 30 w
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>> welder with the right certs can make $300k/year by age 30
Maybe if you are welding under water in dangerous conditions or have some other rare specialty, but the typical welder is getting paid chickenfeed and its a miserable job.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.payscale.com%2Fresea... [payscale.com]
"The average hourly pay for a Welder is $21.89 in 2025"
Electricians are often cited as a lucrative career as well, but that's not the case.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.servicetitan.com%2Fb... [servicetitan.com]
"4-7 years of experience, the median is $76,600, or $36.83 per hour"
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1) Don't forget that welding as a career will eventually ruin your eyes.
2)While the US Median is $36.83, Florida pay for electricians is bottom 10%.
The "Concussion" effect in 2015 (Score:3)
The 2015 football movie "Concussion" brought to the forefront parents discussing career life choices and long-term health.
That was not a national discussion before this movie. Those boys playing youth tackle football in 2025 would be 20 to 30 now.
As others have said here, the pay for entry level blue collar jobs is barely above McDonalds and many of the professions - welding, plumbing, construction - will damage your long term health so that you are nearly disabled by 45. The wage differential of McDonal
Re: the reason is simple (Score:2)
"Hence, someone can earn more at McDonalds than as a plumber's apprentice. So nobody wants to be a plumber's apprentice or electrical apprentice"
That's the stupidest thing I've read in a while, holy shit.
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Do you expect they are thinking this far ahead?
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I can see this causing a big headache in a few years time.
That's a problem for Future-Corp. Only next quarter matters to Present-CSuite, and they will be Former-CSuite before Future-Corp has to deal with it.
Re: So if entry level workers ... (Score:1)
Re:So if entry level workers ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The workers wind up being contractors, is what happens.
For example, one company I worked for, their entry level people all were only coming from one country (and I'm sure we can all guess which.) The mid-level people were being laid off and replaced by contractors (usually off the boat from that country.) Which left the senior people who see the handwriting on the wall and are taking retirement packages.
There really no incentive for companies to hire in the US, or change their practices. In fact, there is a disincentive, where it makes more sense to not bother hiring anyone stateside, and use contract agencies that handle all the employee hiring/firing/liability.
Until government steps in, this isn't going to change, and we will still continue to hear the press say the economy is still forging ahead, more people than ever are at airports traveling, Americans are buying more than ever before, and all that other crap... while more people we know get laid off and stay that way.
It isn't that companies won't invest in workers (Score:2)
If AI is so good, shouldn't that alter entry jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
AI seems like a great tool to augment humans right?
So if AI is really that good, then you should be able to hire entry level workers for entry level pay, and use AI to do senior level work.
Yet it's entry level people having the hardest time. Hmm!
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How senior devs are really made (Score:5, Funny)
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F... [youtube.com]
How College Dies. (Score:5, Interesting)
Raman warned that delayed career entry can cost young workers approximately $22,000 in earnings over a decade.
Given the fact that most young people are doing that whole “delayed career entry” thing because they’re spending 4+ years and $80K+ on education that has resulted in a 30% unemployment rate, followed by crushing student debt loans lasting 20+ years, $22K over a decade sounds like a fucking bargain by comparison.
A 30% unemployment rate translates into financially fucking pointless real quick-like for those considering higher education. If the College Industrial Complex has to be slapped back into reality with bankruptcy, so be it. Just don’t dare try and sell me they’re Too Big To Fail. That shit ain’t gonna fly again.
We can either make education affordable again, or we can watch it die the painful death it deserves right now. If we sustain the status quo, I fear graduates will be reduced to validating financially fucking pointless on behalf of greed and arrogance.
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I agree. $22k across 10 years is practically nothing. I'm guessing that most people here on Slashdot pay at least that in taxes every year. And I'm not talking upper class.
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I think the whole college industrial complex is doing a pretty good job of destroying itself anyway. My friend recruits electronics engineering grads. He has had to develop his own basic skills test, because the grades and degrees these people are getting has little correlation with their actual practical abilities. I mean, one question is 'draw the circuit for a bridge rectifier'. Many grads cannot do this. He has had a number say they need a computer so they can check on google. How are they getting EE de
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The unemployment rate increased 30%. It's not a 30% unemployment rate.
Overall, the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that the unemployment rate for college grads has risen 30 percent since bottoming out in September 2022 (to 2.6 percent from 2 percent), versus about 18 percent for all workers (to 4 percent from 3.4 percent).
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The unemployment rate increased 30%. It's not a 30% unemployment rate.
Overall, the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that the unemployment rate for college grads has risen 30 percent since bottoming out in September 2022 (to 2.6 percent from 2 percent), versus about 18 percent for all workers (to 4 percent from 3.4 percent).
Thank you and I stand corrected. Unfortunately that still doesn't provide good metrics for the business of college today, and the cost put on every graduate struggling to validate the price in both time and money.
"Breaking first is the bottom rung (Score:2)
of the career ladder", but this is just the beginning. AI will be climbing that ladder and nobody's job will be safe.
This could actually be a good thing if some kind of basic income could be established. Most jobs suck anyways, you could be freed from a lifetime of drudgery and stress. We've got to somehow give the AI a strong incentive to keep us alive and happy.
Precisely those unemployed juniors ... (Score:2)
... are going to use AI to decomission the higher ranking jobs and the income streams they are tied to.
This is more of a social thing than a job performance / skill issue. More senior folks are offloading their work to AI and enabling they job to be more chill. As a senior webdev I'm observing this first hand. AI enables me to do in hours what I would've needed days or even weeks to do just 18 months back. It's like having the core team of devs for a given software toolkit sitting next to you, eager to hand
This is serious (Score:2)