AI May Already Be Shrinking Entry-Level Jobs In Tech, New Research Suggests 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Researchers at SignalFire, a data-driven VC firm that tracks job movements of over 600 million employees and 80 million companies on LinkedIn, believe they may be seeing first signs of AI's impact on hiring. When analyzing hiring trends, SignalFire noticed that tech companies recruited fewer recent college graduates in 2024 than they did in 2023. Meanwhile, tech companies, especially the top 15 Big Tech businesses, ramped up their hiring of experienced professionals. Specifically, SignalFire found that Big Tech companies reduced the hiring of new graduates by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023. Meanwhile, graduate recruitment at startups decreased by 11% compared to the prior year. Although SignalFire wouldn't reveal exactly how many fewer grads were hired according to their data, a spokesperson told us it was thousands.
While adoption of new AI tools might not fully explain the dip in recent grad hiring, Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, says there's "convincing evidence" that AI is a significant contributing factor. Entry-level jobs are susceptible to automation because they often involve routine, low-risk tasks that generative AI handles well. AI's new coding, debugging, financial research, and software installation abilities could mean companies need fewer people to do that type of work. AI's ability to handle certain entry-level tasks means some jobs for new graduates could soon be obsolete. [...]
Although AI's threat to low-skilled jobs is real, tech companies' need for experienced professionals is still rising. According to SignalFire's report, Big Tech companies increased hiring by 27% for professionals with two to five years of experience, while startups hired 14% more individuals in that same seniority range. A frustrating paradox emerges for recent graduates: They can't get hired without experience, but they can't get experience without being hired. While this dilemma is not new, Heather Doshay, SignalFire's people and talent partner, says it is considerably exacerbated by AI. Doshay's advice to new grads: master AI tools. "AI won't take your job if you're the one who's best at using it," she said.
While adoption of new AI tools might not fully explain the dip in recent grad hiring, Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, says there's "convincing evidence" that AI is a significant contributing factor. Entry-level jobs are susceptible to automation because they often involve routine, low-risk tasks that generative AI handles well. AI's new coding, debugging, financial research, and software installation abilities could mean companies need fewer people to do that type of work. AI's ability to handle certain entry-level tasks means some jobs for new graduates could soon be obsolete. [...]
Although AI's threat to low-skilled jobs is real, tech companies' need for experienced professionals is still rising. According to SignalFire's report, Big Tech companies increased hiring by 27% for professionals with two to five years of experience, while startups hired 14% more individuals in that same seniority range. A frustrating paradox emerges for recent graduates: They can't get hired without experience, but they can't get experience without being hired. While this dilemma is not new, Heather Doshay, SignalFire's people and talent partner, says it is considerably exacerbated by AI. Doshay's advice to new grads: master AI tools. "AI won't take your job if you're the one who's best at using it," she said.
Re: Unsurprising (Score:4, Informative)
I'm kinda terrified to see AI generated assembly language.
Re: (Score:1)
Not worse than other code: Unreliable, impossible to maintain, insecure and generally crap. Oh, and as soon as we get liability for software (and we will), code like that will count as gross negligence and get your organization killed.
Re: Unsurprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The tech giants would salivate for such a concept as it would effectively destroy open source software.
No, it would not. That is just a lie pushed but the COTS assholes to help them avoid liability. And you fell for the lie.
Need to know the technology stacks which are out (Score:2)
One question is what technology stacks are being removed and replaced now that cloud is 10 years old at most companies?
Re: (Score:2)
And with 50% of the software engineers in 2019 now unemployed (even among senior level developers) they'll have you reviewing that code for minimum wage.
Re: (Score:3)
You know what "senior level developer" may well mean? I had one, "senior web developer" at a customer's (5 years experience or more) that I needed to explain to what a URL looks like. And I do not mean any special or advanced stuff. Just scheme-host-path-query. That guy did not know and had no clue.
Hence I very much doubt most of these misnamed software "engineers" that are now unemployed were any good at their job.
Re: (Score:1)
A year ago: 'It's fancy autocomplete. It will never do anything useful'
Now: 'Those people losing their jobs never deserved them to begin with'
Re: (Score:2)
These people are not unemployed because of LLMs.
Re: (Score:2)
Only somewhat correct. Unemployed because the AI companies convinced the CEOs that they can cut headcount and be fine.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm kinda terrified to see AI generated assembly language.
Why do you think that would be worse than compiler-generated assembly? Or worse than AI-generated code in a high level language?
Re: (Score:1)
I work with obscure assembly system code, which they've all struggled with. But recently, I think they're (particularly Gemini 2.5 Pro) about as good as someone with 2 years of experience. The job involves more than just coding, but it's clear to me that humans using AI will displace jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm wondering whether we get to a point where compilers are obsolete, and AI just generates pre-compiled and optimized binary blobs.
I've seen this a few places and just don't see it happening. Obviously, there's the downside of just completely losing any hint of capability to audit/amend the intermediate coding language representation. So this has to be weighed against the upsides, of which no one seems to have any other than "it seems silly to have a machine generate output that is then transformed back to something for a machine". Just like the concept of a human hand-tuning assembly being able to outperform the best compilers is p
Re: (Score:2)
Just like the concept of a human hand-tuning assembly being able to outperform the best compilers is pretty much no longer true
No, this is not true. Anyone with experience can easily outperform the best compilers (the basic technique is to take the compiler output, time it, and work from there.)
What IS TRUE is that inexperienced people can't beat a compiler, and in particular counting the number of instructions and expecting the code with fewer instructions to go faster will not beat a compiler.
Then you have shitty coworkers (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, AI (more recent versions) puts out higher quality codes than some (not all) of the entry level people I see these days, and does it a lot faster. Granted, it should still be reviewed, but you need to review a lot of that code anyway. It's only going to improve, too.
I use AI daily. It compiles about half the time. I use for simple things, like write a unit test or convert this loop into a lambda, as well as complex things ("Find where variable `buttPlug` is initialized"). Sometimes it gives the right answer. Most of the time, it's a really bad answer. It seriously only compiles half the time....like I've seen it declare Strings wrong. It's also fooled me quite a few times where it gave an answer with a subtle bug that looked right....so yeah, entry level programmers?...every one I've hired can write code that compiles...reliably. Can you say the same about Claude, Copilot or ChatGPT?
It's going to improve?...ummm...are you sure?...what's the holdup?...there are trillions of lines of open source Java out there...there's probably more Java training data than nearly anything on the planet...and you can build the project to check to see if it compiles. How come Claude, CoPilot and ChatGPT can't write code that compiles?...sometimes the error is that it can't even declare a String correctly. Given the trillions of dollars invested, if it hasn't been fixed by now, I don't think their current approach will ever work. Perhaps a hybrid between AI and a rules engine?...something creative like that might work...but...again...why hasn't it been done?...if the AI is so good at coding, why not write the logic to improve it on simple targeted tasks?
Your responses make me think you've never used AI...as well as you don't understand how it works.
Re: (Score:2)
what's the holdup?
Artificial Neural Network topology design. This is currently a very slow search through an enormous search space (because we also need to train a network to know whether it is any good). The number of different ways to connect billions of artificial neurons together is mindbogglingly huge. Biological evolution has had the advantage of being able to 'try out' billions and billions of different network topologies. On the other hand, the number of different artificial neural network topologies that have ever e
So it won't compile until I ask it like an expert? (Score:2)
tl;dr: If you ask questions like a n00b, you push the model to giving n00b-answers; If you talk to it like an expert the results are much, much better.
So it won't compile because my question was too n00b?...my specific question was given these Strings, write a RegEx that will replace $a with $b. So...I am a n00b...but that seems pretty normal. However, the point you're missing is the complaint wasn't that Claude didn't understand my requirements and solved the wrong problem...it gave a solution that NOT ONLY was wrong and didn't work, but didn't even compile. MS CoPilot failed on String generation. I am very open minded to the notion that garbage in y
Re: (Score:2)
You wrote a lot, but did you read what I linked?
The point is that if you ask a question like a n00b, not only will the form of the reply be aimed at a n00b (which is good), but the content of the reply will be more as if it was written by a n00b.
If you see the space from which the AI draws the answer as a bunch of different rooms with some of them containing experts and some of them containing n00bs, then the way you prompt apparently determines which of those rooms you go into and get an answer from.
I don'
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly, AI (more recent versions) puts out higher quality codes than some (not all) of the entry level people I see these days, and does it a lot faster. Granted, it should still be reviewed, but you need to review a lot of that code anyway. It's only going to improve, too. I'm wondering whether we get to a point where compilers are obsolete, and AI just generates pre-compiled and optimized binary blobs.
Even if AI can do that... who is going to review those binary blobs?
"job movements of over 600 million employees" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: "job movements of over 600 million employees" (Score:1)
Solutions fixing Problems. (Score:2)
Hmm, so 599 999 973 AIs are looking for jobs? So many solutions looking for problems.
So, you’re saying there’s barely enough AIs to cover the amount of ghost job postings?
Solutions fixing problems in search of creating problems to fix solutions.
Even AI is gonna need a bong hit soon.
students: heres what to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Contribute to OSS for 2 years while you are still in school. Put this experience on your resume in the employment section. This way, the AI that replaced HR will sort your application with the other people who say they have 2 years of experience.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should this only count for AI? Experience is experience. And HR-AI will use the same stupid rules like other HR people ... if you're lucky with a bit less personal bias, but possibly even that changes when AI now starts to interpret images, audio and video to judge if you're a good fit.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I can tell you right now nobody gives a rat's ass what you did in school.
I know this because I just put a kid through school and I can tell you right now that's the last 2 years of school are composed of on the job training that you pay for now. I remember seeing my kids workload and being pretty fucking pissed off that I was literally paying for them to be trained on the job.
And when they got out of college it still took them 5 years to get t
Re: (Score:2)
being denied a job
What an odd phrase. If I ask a plumber for a quote on replacing my water heater and then I decide to do it myself, has the plumber been "denied a job"?
I guess technically yes, but the plumber wasn't entitled to the job. I was thinking about hiring a plumber. They may be a very skilled plumber. But whether I hired a different plumber, or did the job myself, or even just decided not to do the job at all because I changed my mind about wanting hot water, I haven't wronged the plumber in any way by deciding not
Re: (Score:2)
As a hiring manager, this is not my lived experience. I hire kids fresh out of state college based primarily on if they can solve some trivial whiteboard problem and if they pass the vibe check with the rest of the team. Typically, if you can deal with the egos involved in open source governance, you'll do just fine on the vibe check and also do well navigating the office egos. And as far as the OSS authors being denied a job, its like this: I'd rather hire the kind of people who are eager to be the firs
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't that be in volunteer work section?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, you could format it that way. The goal here is to get your resume past the automated filter, and if you make it to an interview, to give the interviewer a good prompt for you to tell a compelling story about yourself and what you can do.
Re: (Score:2)
Because I was told to put all volunteer work in its own section instead of paid professional works. However, that was long ago!
Is it really, or is it Trump (Score:5, Interesting)
Specifically, SignalFire found that Big Tech companies reduced the hiring of new graduates by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023
Incidentally, the threat of a Trump recession jumped dramatically over that time period.
Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, says there's "convincing evidence" that AI is a significant contributing factor
Convincing evidence would be doing a survey and asking companies why they reduced hiring. What Asher has done here is form a hypothesis (an important step in the scientific method, don't denigrate it, but not convincing evidence).
Re: (Score:2)
Probably both. When ecconomic stability goes away, companies only hire when they have to. Obviously, the orange moron and his deranged helpers do not even understand something this exceptionally obvious.
So it's kind of a catch 22 (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't emphasize this enough, it does not matter if it works or not.
If it works great for them they get to replace you with an AI.
If it doesn't work the survivors will have to do double shifts to make up for the AI that doesn't work.
The real problem here is workers have absolutely no bargaining power whatsoever..
One thing I can say for sure automation has devastated the blue color. We have solid evidence that 70% of middle class jobs got taken by automation not outsourcing. And Trump's own commerce Secretary admitted that even if they bring the factories back they're going to be automated so no new jobs unless you want to count some temporary construction work.
We are going into a post-work civilization and the fucking crazy thing is we're going to do it before we have replicators so we're going to have all the fighting over resources and none of the jobs that go with that.
The good news is we are building a missile defense system that doesn't work but we're going to convince people that does. And I'm sure that won't cause world war III.
I mean the last time the industrial revolution caused mass unemployment we fixed it with two world wars and killing a huge population of working age adults. I mean it's not the best solution but it is a solution...
Re: (Score:2)
If it doesn't work the survivors will have to do double shifts to make up for the AI that doesn't work.
They don't have to.
Re: So it's kind of a catch 22 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Great point, and It's both AI and Trump.
Uncertainty from Trump has caused pullback in discretionary spending. Companies are putting things off, growth is stalled because no one has any idea what tomorrow might offer politically.
Regarding AI, it does improve existing developer efficiency (and it will only get better). Management will want to test this and put off hiring (attrition as well).
Finally, AI is probably crippling capital spending. Why embark on a multi-year project now when AI might replace it i
Re: (Score:2)
Great point, and It's both AI and Trump.
You've developed a great hypothesis. Next step, collect evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
On the Trump side, it's anecdotal. I've witnessed a variety of business pull back on new developments since January. Specifically IT consulting side projects. Fortune 500 to medium sized businesses. 100% say it's market and political uncertainty. They don't project this publicly, and the pullback is in discretionary funds, the companies aren't talking about slowing down spending.
First time we've heard that in... I can't remember when (I wasn't a consultant in 2007).
On the AI side, I don't need an anecd
Re: (Score:2)
Timely, the NY Times has an article about this today, covering the AI angle further. Might be paywalled.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F0... [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
And I'm not saying Trump's policies are causing the sharp drop in CEO confidence since the start of 2025, but the timing is suspect (down to COVID and 2007 crisis levels).
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conference-board.o... [conference-board.org]
I imagine that impacts hiring and discretionary/capital expenditures at companies.
What "entry level" jobs? (Score:2, Funny)
Those haven't existed since the 90s. If you don't have 20 years of experience at 20 years old you don't get a job these days.
Is it AI or overhiring? (Score:5, Informative)
I think when you look at the graph of software engineer jobs it looks far more likely that we are in a correction phase for overhiring:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.pragmaticengineer... [pragmaticengineer.com]
I'm sure at some point there will be some effect of AI on entry level jobs, but in the companies where I stroll around I think the main issue is mostly that companies want to reduce the amount of programmers they have and not so much that AI is reducing the workload. I think a lot of companies would say it's because of AI because that looks better than most other explanations.
Re:Is it AI or overhiring? (Score:4)
There are two really nasty trends that folks don't like the think about.
The first is automation is real and it does take your job. In the past a lot of managers didn't want to automate White collar work. I had a manager for years who would order my team to do things by hand. I ignored them and that automation so that we could do other stuff or just take it easy. But the key there is the management didn't know we were automating cuz they were scared of automation..
AI has convinced every single manager that they can automate anything and everything. And yeah they're going to try to automate some things they aren't able to do yet but they're taken care of all hell of a lot of low hanging fruit and in the process eliminating a lot of jobs.
The second thing is forced productivity. because there is no Capital out there you can use the start a business and absolutely no antitrust laws so you would just get crushed if you got any traction companies can replace you within ai and force everyone who still has a job to work 80 hours a week picking up the AI's slack.
This is why Americans now work more hours than the Japanese.
Basically we are going into techno feudalism. Everything is going to go to shit. Our civilization needs to restructure around all this automation but we can't do that because we've spent the last several thousand years in a sort of if you don't work you don't eat society and it's really really really hard to adapt to a society where they're just isn't enough work to justify all these people.
I mean take a step back. Stop. Think a bit. You do realize that every waking moment of your life you are justifying your right to exist through work and that if you stop for even a moment our society will take away your right to exist.
Theoretically we make exceptions for the extremely ill but in practice trust me we don't your family picks up that slack will you just don't live.
I remember seeing all that nonsensical talk about death panels and how you would have to justify your right to medicine with productivity and thinking that's exactly the way it is now.
Re: (Score:2)
"I mean take a step back. Stop. Think a bit. You do realize that every waking moment of your life you are justifying your right to exist through work and that if you stop for even a moment our society will take away your right to exist."
It's that the way it's basically always been through human history? The concept of "retirement" where you get to just kick back after a certain age even if you are perfectly healthy was completely foreign to anybody prior to the 20th century. Idleness was the privilege of a
Just because we always did it (Score:2)
Poverty and starvation are now a choice we make. We want people to live in poverty and we want children to starve.
We can debate the reasons why we want those things but the fact of the matter is we do want to those things.
The fact that you can't question anything besides constantly having to prove your right to live is more of a cultural thing than a fact of rea
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably more complicated. Some of column a some of column b.
Bring the evidence.
AI won't take your job? (Score:2)
The problem is, by and large jobs aren't taken - they're given by business owners and their MBA-driven middle managers.
If you're a business owner and you have a task that can be done in two ways:
* Human + AI = more productive human, human level salary
* All AI = OK performance, little or no salary
You're going to choose the second one until it becomes clear that "OK performance" is actively alienating your customers.
I predict many spectacular AI failures while this lesson is learned and relearned.
Re:AI won't take your job? (Score:4, Interesting)
I predict many spectacular AI failures while this lesson is learned and relearned.
Same here. And it will probably take several decades to fix the damage done. Because the other thing that is going to happen is that people will move to different fields for their education. Having a generation missing from an education field takes about 50 years to get fixed.
Well, good for all that still go into these areas, because "AI" will not cut it. I recently read a study that found that when selling insirance (something a lot more accessible to AI than general STEM jobs), AI saves a whopping 2.8% of work time. Also "OK performance" will not be reached. That is mosly excessive delusion from "managers" that contribute nothing and now see theur chance to "improve" things, when all they do is massive damage.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what will happen if AI levels off at the current level or just slightly above it. But there really are very few signs that the curve has started to level off. If it only doubles in competence over the next 5 years and then stops that forecast is going to be way off, and the signs are that it's improving faster than that.
Re: (Score:2)
Think the issue is that "OK performance" is largely out of reach of 'All' AI for most of the jobs people would be thinking of.
But assuming you get mediocre results, well, that's generally good enough. Slap a tray of dishes through a dishwasher. Sometimes they come through with stuff still stuck to the plates while a human dishwasher wouldn't make that mistake. Did that kill dishwashing machines? Not at all, still massively cheaper and if you *really* care a human can audit the results. Go to a buffet and ch
Re: (Score:2)
If you're a business owner and you have a task that can be done in two ways:
* Human + AI = more productive human, human level salary
* All AI = OK performance, little or no salary
You're going to choose the second one until it becomes clear that "OK performance" is actively alienating your customers.
It's also going to be funny when the people actually making the LLMs that give "OK performance" move past the user acquisition phase and put on their SaaS boots and start trying to cash in on their investments. If their LLM is worth the equivalent of Western knowledge-labor they aren't going to give unlimited queries for peanuts at some point. The calculus will get trickier for the business owner when it's tens of thousands of dollars for the "All AI" option.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, how stupid can you be? How do these people think they are getting more senior people later?
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. Personally, I can not even imagine being this extremely stupid. You have to willfully ignore the absolutely obvious.
Re: (Score:2)
Often the PHB attitude is: training is something that other companies do so that I can then hire their good people.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Or not. And if too many PHBs think that, the economy goes down the drains.
American healthcare system hurts too (Score:1)
I have absolutely lost jobs because of this. Just recently I saw some work go to the UK that I was gunning for because they just cost a lot less than I do and it's not lower overall wages. Dollar for dollar in pure payout they cost the same however I cann
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. I've seen this in Canada for my whole life... nothing to do with AI... Employers have bleated that there isn't enough "qualified" potential hires... but they wouldn't put a dime into training. Yet, they never saw how that works. I thought it was a specific failing of Canadian ... lets call them "business leaders"... :-)
In my experience, qualification has little to do with anything that can be trained. People with the right kind of brain can and will learn whatever is needed to do the job. Those without will never be very effective no matter how much you spend on training. The top tier software engineering companies don't really even bother asking you what you know because trainable knowledge doesn't matter. Instead, they focus on asking you to solve problems, live, because while problem-solving is to some degree a teac
Re: (Score:2)
While you are not totally wrong, you overlook one critical part: The actual problem-solvers are a small part of the workforce and they are not enough. There is a group that is close to a problem-solver and can be trained to become that. And these people are lost when there is no entry-level jobs anymore. Probally 50-70% of the people you actually needs, not available anymore. A really bad idea. Oh, and no entry-level jobs also means that smart and capable people will go into other fields.
Re: (Score:2)
What I'm
Re: (Score:2)
The answer is that AI is less the reason at this point and more the cover story. These companies had no idea what to do with the manpower and just kept hiring, because their competitors were hiring and they'll be damned if they look like idiots while competition hires. Hiring was a sign you had ideas, ambitions, commitments to your business plans and comfort that you have the financials to sustain it.
Now AI provides a new "cool" answer, a "good" company must have significantly offloaded their coding grun
Re: (Score:2)
There may be something like that. But the stories are that the actually competent and qualified and needed people in coding, for example, are starting to hate their jobs because of LLM use. And once these critical people are gone, you are never going to get them back.
Whose surprised? (Score:2)
Re: Whose surprised? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Getting experience without being hired (Score:2)
To get experience as a software engineer, all you need is a laptop (not even a great one), an internet connection (not even a fast one), and time. Most development tools are free, a lot of tutorials and documentation are free, and so are many libraries and other assets.
Create a GitHub profile. Make a public hobby project that goes beyond a todo list or space
BLS (Score:2)
BLS has recorded a growth of >20% in reported software developer since 2021. So, I'm not surprised a bunch can't find jobs. It doesn't really say anything about the industry, of course, just the pipeline of "candidates".
end the H1b visa program (Score:1)
somewhere around 600,000 H1b visa workers. end this program and opportunities and wages for americans will soar.
Re: (Score:2)
Our president is already working hard to make the US unattractive to top foreign talent who might attend or work
Re: (Score:1)
it probably will in the short term hurt us. but giving opportunities to american in the long term will strengthen us.
why open offices in vancouver and fill it with indians when u can just open an office in india?
the purpose of the H1b program is to displace american workers and lower wages, this drives down wages on a macro scale. what corporation fear most is there being a genuine worker shortage where companies have to compete for workers, wages would go thru the roof! adjusted for inflation minimum wage
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! Trump streamlined it in the 1st term (initially freezing it while it was made better = worse) but the limits I expect to be changed this time around. Elon wants more of it and he's not really gone just low profile.