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The end of 2025 painted a bleak picture for the job market, especially for entry-level positions.
Entry-level jobs are disappearingsays one study. Companies are planning to replace those positions Another says about the use of artificial intelligence tools. The technology is deprive young workers of job prospects in disproportionate proportions.
But in the middle of the market Recently, it has been said that it is “extremely cold”, Is AI really responsible?
Experts told HR Dive that the story is more nuanced than that, but the implications of AI adoption are numerous. Additionally, employers using this technology for tasks typically assigned to entry-level employees may be unprepared for the changes that such an investment may require.
what the story hides
The end of 2025 will see some high-profile layoffs and layoffs. 14,000 roles are being retired on Amazon — While the focus is on AI adoption, that may be a win-win for employers, Jason Walker, co-founder, CEO and CPO of Thrive Consulting, told HR Dive via email.
“Quite frankly, layoffs are always on the table,” Walker said. “But I think what facilitates that is the guise of, ‘We need to be more efficient,’ and AI is enabling that narrative.”
He continued that companies are hiring less, especially now as they evaluate the effects of AI and whether it will actually make companies more efficient.
Emily Rose McRae, senior director analyst at Gartner, told HR Dive that while new hires appear to be at risk, they aren't necessarily the only victims of attrition, nor are they necessarily laid off before anyone else. But institutional hiring is down, and universities are reporting difficulty helping graduates find jobs, she said.
Wendy Mazowey, Korn Ferry's global vice president of recruitment process outsourcing, told HR Dive that it's also unlikely that early-career talent will be completely shut out of the market. One of the company's clients, a major global aerospace technology manufacturer, brought AI into the enterprise while maintaining a “very strong commitment to hiring early career talent,” Mazoway said. She added that programs for early adopters are indeed expanding, focusing on how jobs are changing but also creating opportunities.
So is the adoption of AI really driving a massive shift in workforce? “The problem is, no one can say for sure how much of that is due to the superior benefits of AI,” McRae says. “Probably not at all.”
Employers are still in speculation mode regarding the benefits of this technology. Many may be forced to make redundancies as a form of “debt financing,” McRae added, in the hopes that the returns from AI investments will eventually justify them.
However, uncertainty about the actual impact of AI on operations remains an issue. On the other hand, some companies sales force and AmazonWhile Walker is upfront about how AI is changing his business, he said there are few concrete examples.
“No one can tell you specifically [t]hat AI will improve business and make it more efficient,” Walker said.
Walker said the benefits of AI are notoriously difficult to quantify. And employers may have a hard time trying out the powerful productivity gains that technology companies often promise.
According to McCrae, the key is clarity. “Don’t invest in your talent strategy based on the capabilities of technology you don’t have access to,” she says.
If entry-level jobs are at risk, what does that mean for the pipeline?
While the impact of AI on layoffs has been overstated so far, the reality is that many entry-level jobs are actually at risk, Walker said. And the effects can be quantified.
He noted that entry-level researchers, marketing communications professionals, administrative assistants, and even early-career software engineers are seeing large portions of their jobs taken over by automation.
McRae said there's also the potential for employers to redesign workflows to better leverage AI, which could lead to fewer entry-level jobs. But that brings up another problem. How do employers build a sustainable and reliable pipeline of workers with the experience needed for higher-level jobs?
“The problem with this is twofold,” McRae said. In this case, not only are workers not learning the skills, but there are also no easy indicators of competency (such as years of experience in a particular role) that employers can use when considering promotions or hiring.
And, as Mazowey pointed out, employers can train these workers, but those who go through the trouble of training can, and often do, easily be poached by competitors instead, McRae said. If there is too much uncertainty, people will leave the field altogether, evening out the talent shortage. more serious.
Change management and decision-making issues
Because AI is still new, McRae says there is little guidance on how to prepare employees for its impact. To benefit from these investments, employers may have to lead costly redesigns of workflows and job designs. And many leaders may not think the change is worth it, even when they see how much effort it will take, she noted.
Employees may also be wary of their employer's attempts to manage change. According to a December report from Eagle Hill Consulting, only one in four employees surveyed said it was about their organization. Manage major changes effectively.
But not all changes result in the loss of jobs and opportunities. Many companies are investing in training centers again after their popularity declined during the pandemic, Mazoway said. He added that AI generally requires significant investment in infrastructure, which creates jobs.
She pointed out that AI is just the latest technology to change the way work is done, and knowledge-based jobs have been facing this trend for a long time. “If you think back to my job as a recruiter 30 years ago, I was flipping through the phone book and calling people,” Mazowey said. Rather, people in the job today are more focused on building relationships, thanks to advances in applicant tracking systems and other recruiting technologies.
But in general, Walker said change management will remain the elephant in the room as the AI conversation progresses.
“I don't think it's about education and training. It's about change management and understanding how to use AI more efficiently,” he said. “That's what people have to learn.”
