Think AI Is Killing Early-Career Jobs? The Truth May Surprise You

Earlier today, I was a panelist on the June Talent Market Index webinar about the early-career job market, hosted by Talivity, the parent company of recruitment advertising agency, Recruitics.

On the panel with me was Michelle Schwartz, Director of the University of Montana’s Gianchetta Student Success Center and Internships in its College of Business. Our cohosts were Talivity’s Mona Tawakali, Chief Strategy Officer, and Jonathan (JZ) Zila, President.

The conversation centered on why the job market for students and recent graduates has gotten softer than it was a year ago. As expected, most of the discussion zeroed in on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Is AI the big job-killer for new grads? We agreed that AI is one factor, but it’s not the whole story. In fact, the truth may surprise you: there are several other powerful forces at play, many of which we didn’t have time to delve into during the webinar.

Mona kicked off the webcast with an overview of the cost of hiring across various industries. Interestingly, she noted that in some industries – notably tech and healthcare – the cost per hire has increased compared to a year ago, while other sectors have actually seen hiring costs stabilize or even drop. She cited causes like tariffs, changes in immigration policy, and other macroeconomic shifts as drivers of these cost differences. This set the stage for our discussion: clearly, something bigger is happening in the job market beyond just AI coming onto the scene.

When JZ led the Q&A portion, Michelle and I shared our perspectives on why the early-career job market has cooled for most students and recent grads. We acknowledged AI’s role in that cooling, but time ran short before we could explore the other reasons for the downturn. After the webinar, I found myself thinking about those unspoken factors and decided to flesh them out here. In total, I believe that there are five key reasons behind the softer market for entry-level jobs.

1. The Post-COVID Economic Cooldown

The first and most wide-ranging factor is the overall economy. To put it bluntly, the job market today just isn’t as red-hot as it was during the post-COVID hiring boom of 2021–2022. Back then, as the pandemic eased, companies were in a frenzy to hire and rebuild. There was pent-up demand, businesses were growing fast, and many employers couldn’t fill roles quickly enough, which meant great opportunities for new graduates. We saw signing bonuses, rapid promotions, and a mindset of “hire now, figure it out later” as organizations scrambled to staff up.

Fast forward to now, and that feverish boom has cooled significantly. Economic growth has slowed from its breakneck pace, and many industries are facing headwinds. High inflation through 2022 and into 2023 forced a lot of companies to tighten their belts as costs rose for everything from raw materials to salaries. The Federal Reserve also responded by raising interest rates steeply to combat inflation. Higher interest rates have made borrowing money more expensive for businesses. For a growing company, the cost of taking out loans to expand (or even just to cover operating expenses) is much higher than a couple of years ago. As a result, many firms have cut back on expansion plans and, by extension, on hiring. When companies scale back growth projections, entry-level hiring often takes an early hit – they might decide they can get by without that new cohort of trainees or postpone a planned new grad program until things look rosier.

Another economic pressure has been the ongoing tariffs and trade uncertainties that date back several years but continue to affect industries like manufacturing, technology, and agriculture. Tariffs on imported components or materials raise production costs, which can lead companies to reduce costs elsewhere, often by automating processes or reducing labor costs. A tech hardware company, for example, facing higher import costs for components, might slow down hiring in order to keep expenses under control. In our webinar, Mona pointed out that tech and healthcare have become more expensive in terms of cost-per-hire; tariffs and supply chain issues contribute to that by making key inputs pricier and margins tighter. If a hospital has to pay more for imported medical equipment due to tariffs, it might hire fewer support staff. If a software company finds its cloud hosting or hardware costs rising, it might respond by pausing on adding that extra junior developer. These ripple effects mean fewer new jobs are created than we might have expected in a more free-flowing trade environment.

Policy changes also play a role here. Changes in immigration policy over the last few months have made it harder in some cases for companies to hire foreign talent or even retain workers on certain visas. At first glance, you might think, “How does that hurt new grads who are U.S. citizens?” Well, it has a complex effect. In some high-skill sectors like tech and healthcare, if companies can’t get the experienced talent from abroad that they need (say, a specialized software engineer or a foreign-trained nurse), they sometimes leave roles unfilled or relocate projects offshore, rather than hiring a recent local graduate who may not have the precise skills. In other cases, stricter immigration rules can raise labor costs (employers might have to pay more to attract domestic talent or deal with shortages), which again can tighten hiring budgets company-wide. It’s an indirect connection, but it contributes to the general slowdown in hiring momentum.

One often-overlooked piece of the economic puzzle is a change in the 2017 U.S. tax code that has only recently started to sting companies’ finances. This is the rule that now requires employers to amortize certain capitalized expenses in five or fewer years if the work is done in the United States, versus fifteen years if the work is done abroad. In plainer language: let’s say a company spends a bunch of money on research and development or other capital projects. Under this rule, if those activities (and the jobs associated with them) happen on U.S. soil, the company can’t deduct the full costs right away for tax purposes – it has to spread the deduction out over five years. If the same R&D were done overseas, the deduction is spread over a much longer period (fifteen years), which is even less attractive in the short term.

The intent might have been to incentivize domestic investment by at least giving a faster write-off for U.S. projects than foreign ones, but in practice, it’s been a headache. Companies, large and small,l have complained that this change ties up their cash flow and makes U.S.-based projects comparatively expensive and less appealing. How does that translate into hiring? If a firm decides not to invest in that new U.S. research lab or software development project because the tax treatment makes it cost-prohibitive this quarter, that also means they’re not hiring the team of engineers or analysts that would have run it. Some companies have indeed started looking to shift certain projects overseas (despite the longer amortization there, it can still be cheaper overall due to labor cost differences), or they’ve canceled projects entirely. That directly reduces job opportunities for entry-level workers who might have been hired into those projects. It’s a somewhat hidden factor – you won’t see “tax amortization change” trending on X (formerly Twitter), but it’s affecting hiring budgets in a very real way.

All of these elements – inflation, high interest rates, tariffs, immigration shifts, quirky tax rules – add up. They contribute to an economic environment where companies are more cautious and operating costs are higher. When the economy was booming, employers could afford to take chances on new grads, bring in extra hands, and invest in training. In today’s cooler climate, many firms are asking themselves, “Do we absolutely need to hire right now?” If the answer is no, they often choose to wait. Unfortunately, that cautious approach hits those at the start of their careers the hardest, because entry-level roles are easier to put on hold than essential senior positions. The result is a tougher market for almost all candidates in almost all sectors, and especially for young people trying to get that first foot in the door.

2. Artificial Intelligence – Scapegoat, Boogeyman, and Benefactor

Now let’s talk about the factor everyone’s been buzzing about: artificial intelligence. It’s true that AI is having a profound impact on the labor market, including early-career jobs. But its role is complex – AI is simultaneously a job killer in some respects and a job creator or enhancer in others. We need to unpack both sides to understand why AI’s rise contributes to a softer job market for new grads, but also why it’s not the sole culprit (and could even be part of the solution for some job seekers).

On the more negative side, AI and automation can replace or reduce the need for certain entry-level roles. Many tasks that used to be done by fresh hires or interns can now be handled by algorithms, chatbots, or software robots. For instance, consider an entry-level customer support representative – nowadays, companies increasingly use AI-driven chatbots to handle routine customer inquiries. That means they might hire fewer support reps than before, and perhaps favor those with more specialized skills to handle only the complex cases. Another example is in marketing or content creation, where a junior marketing coordinator might have once spent hours drafting social media posts or basic copy, tools like generative AI can produce decent first drafts in seconds. A manager might think, “I don’t need an extra assistant if our AI can crank out the basic work and my current team can just edit it.” We’re seeing similar trends in fields like law (AI legal research tools reducing the need for as many paralegals to sift through cases) and finance (automated analysis tools handling what junior analysts used to do late at night in Excel). If a task is repetitive and rules-based, there’s probably an AI out there being deployed to tackle it. And who typically starts off doing the repetitive grunt work? New grads. So it’s no wonder that AI is often portrayed as the big bad wolf eating entry-level jobs.

However, that’s not the whole story. There’s a more optimistic flip side: AI is also enabling new opportunities and more efficiency, which can actually encourage some hiring or at least reshape it. Think about how personal computers in the 1980s or the internet in the 1990s created whole new job categories – AI is doing the same right now. Entire new fields and roles are emerging, from prompt engineering (getting AI systems to produce the desired output) to AI ethics consultants to data labeling for machine learning. A college student graduating in 2025 might land a job that literally didn’t exist five years ago, like “AI marketing campaign strategist” or “junior machine learning ops specialist,” which are roles companies are inventing as they integrate AI into their operations. In that sense, AI is a job creator, not just a destroyer.

Moreover, AI can make existing employees more productive, which, in a counterintuitive wa,y can make it feasible for employers to hire when they otherwise wouldn’t. Here’s how: if one entry-level hire can now accomplish what used to take two people (thanks to AI tools boosting their output), an employer might justify hiring that one person and giving them an AI toolset. Without AI, the company might have decided hiring two was too expensive and hired nobody at all. In other words, some employers are willing to bring on a junior employee because that person, augmented with AI, can generate more value than they cost. We talked about this a bit on the webinar: AI helps some candidates by increasing their productivity and value-add, essentially raising the ceiling of what a new grad can handle. A single developer straight out of college, armed with AI code assistants, might produce as much useful code as a small team could a few years back. For a resource-strapped startup, hiring that one AI-empowered grad is a bargain.

Of course, this “AI augmentation” argument is a small comfort to the folks whose roles are simply being eliminated or whose job offers have disappeared because a machine does it now. On balance, is AI making it harder or easier for new grads? At this moment, the prevailing sentiment (and likely reality) is that AI is contributing to a net reduction in certain traditional entry-level openings. Many employers have publicly said they’re slowing hiring in areas where automation can handle the work. Even during our panel, you could tell from the conversation that people largely blame AI for the tougher job landscape. In many ways, AI has become a scapegoat for any hiring slowdown – it’s the shiny new thing to point to.

But as I’ve just outlined, AI is not acting alone, and it might not even be the biggest factor everywhere. It’s one piece of a larger puzzle. Yes, early-career job seekers should be aware of AI’s impact – meaning they should aim to develop skills that complement AI (such as creative thinking, interpersonal communication, adaptability) or skills in operating and leveraging AI tools themselves. The bottom line on AI: it’s a factor, perhaps the flashiest one, in the cooling of the entry-level market. It certainly feels like the ground shifting under our feet when a new technology can do some of our work. But focusing on AI alone misses the many other undercurrents that are just as influential in shaping the job landscape.

3. Skills-Based Hiring and a Broader Talent Pool

Another significant shift in the job market – one that hasn’t gotten as many flashy headlines as AI but is hugely important – is the rise of skills-based hiring. Over the past few years, a lot of employers (including some of the biggest companies and even government agencies) have been dropping the requirement of a four-year college degree for roles that traditionally insisted on one. Instead, they’re focusing more on the specific skills and competencies a candidate brings. This trend is often summarized as “skills over degrees.”

On the surface, this is a positive development, especially from an equity standpoint. It opens up opportunities to talented individuals who, for whatever reason, don’t have a college diploma but do have the ability to do the job. It helps employers fill roles in a tight labor market by widening the funnel of candidates. And it addresses the issue of “degree inflation” – where jobs that don’t truly require a degree have started listing it as a default requirement. In fact, some studies showed that in 2017, about 51% of job postings required a bachelor’s degree. By 2021, that number had fallen to around 44%, reflecting this shift toward skills-based evaluations. Companies like IBM, Google, Bank of America, and many others have publicly embraced hiring people without degrees for certain roles, and numerous state governments (from Maryland to Alaska to North Carolina, to name a few) have eliminated degree requirements for a large portion of their own job listings. This means that someone with the right coding skills but no B.S. in Computer Science might land a software job that previously would have been off-limits, or an experienced manager without a degree could run a store or a team where once only college grads were considered.

So what’s the catch? Why would a move that sounds fairer and more inclusive contribute to a tough market for new college graduates? The answer is competition. If you’re a recent grad with a shiny new diploma, you’re now competing not just against your fellow graduates for a given job, but potentially against a whole new swath of candidates who may have years of experience or training but no degree. The talent pool for many entry-level positions has effectively broadened. For example, a marketing assistant position might have been open only to degree-holders a few years ago. Today, that same position may be open to anyone with relevant skills, so you might find yourself up against a candidate who spent the last four years doing digital marketing freelance work instead of getting a college degree. They might not have a Bachelor’s, but they have a client portfolio and practical know-how. That’s tough competition! Similarly, consider an IT support role: previously, a company might have only considered computer science grads. Now they might consider someone who went to a coding bootcamp or learned IT through military service. If you just finished college with an IT degree and little hands-on experience, suddenly you’re on equal footing with (or at a disadvantage to) someone who’s been tinkering with networks in the real world for a few years.

In short, skills-based hiring has broadened the labor pool for what used to be “college-grad jobs.” That’s great for employers and for non-graduate workers, but it means college students and recent grads don’t have the same automatic leg-up they used to. A degree used to act as a sort of gatekeeping credential for a majority of jobs; now, less than half of postings require it. We removed the gate, so more people can run onto the field, which is a more meritocratic game, but also a more crowded one. Employers are seeing more applicants per position, which allows them to be pickier and raise the bar on what entry-level means. They might say, “Well, we’re not requiring a degree, but now we expect either a degree or two years of relevant experience or a professional certificate.” Either way, new grads find themselves needing to prove actual skills and experience, not just rely on their college transcript.

There’s also an interesting possibility on the horizon: some labor economists at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce project that by 2031, roughly 72% of all jobs will require some form of postsecondary education or training (i.e., college degrees or similar credentials). That projection, which is a big jump, suggests that as the economy evolves and jobs get more specialized, the pendulum might swing back toward needing advanced education. In other words, we might be in a temporary trough where degrees are less emphasized, but as technology and skill demands rise (think about the proliferation of data science, cybersecurity, biotech – fields that often need high levels of training), formal education could become important again to fill the pipeline for those roles. If that prediction holds true, by the end of this decade, employers might once more be leaning heavily on college-educated talent, potentially squeezing out those without degrees.

But that’s the future. Right now, in the current moment, the reality is that skills-based hiring has “leveled the playing field” in a way that actually levels down the prospects for new grads. It used to be that a college degree would guarantee you at least an entry ticket to a decent job competition; now, it’s just one of many possible tickets. I often advise students and recent grads to highlight the specific skills and projects they’ve done, not just to wave around a diploma. That’s what employers want to see in this new paradigm. The upside is, if you have the skills and can demonstrate them, you might also apply to jobs that you thought were out of reach because they seem to prefer experience over education. But generally, this trend means more applicants per entry-level job and thus a tougher time landing one. It’s a subtle factor, but when layered on top of the economic slowdown and AI, it’s part of the reason this job market feels so challenging.

4. Skyrocketing College Costs and the Pressure for High-Paying Jobs

This next factor is a bit more personal and psychological, but it has real labor market consequences: the soaring cost of attending college and the resulting burden of student loan debt. Over the past couple of decades, college tuition and fees have increased dramatically, far outpacing general inflation and wage growth. Many students are graduating with significant debt loads – sometimes tens of thousands, in some cases over $100,000 for those who pursued pricey private schools or multiple degrees. Even those who avoided loans often did so by stretching their families’ finances or working multiple jobs during school. The net effect is that a huge number of recent graduates feel intense financial pressure as they step into the workforce.

Why does this matter for the early-career job market? Because graduates with heavy debt or high expense burdens are often constrained in the kinds of jobs they can accept. If you owe $600 a month in student loan payments, plus rent, plus maybe helping out your family, you’re likely looking for the highest-paying job you can get right out of the gate. That’s rational – you need to make those payments. But it also means many new grads might ignore or reject decent entry-level jobs that don’t pay enough, hoping to land something in a better-paying industry. For example, a talented graduate might love to work at a nonprofit, or as a teacher, or in a government entry role, but those typically pay modest salaries. If they’re staring at their loan statements, they may instead go for a consulting job, a software engineering role, an investment banking analyst slot – something with a starting salary that promises a quicker path to financial stability.

The problem is, those higher-paying entry-level jobs are fewer in number and extremely competitive. Not everyone who wants a $90,000 starting salary can get one. So what happens to the grads who won’t take (or can’t afford to take) the $50,000 job? Some end up underemployed or unemployed for a while, holding out or going from internship to internship, trying to break into a lucrative field. Others might attempt the gig economy or side hustles while searching for that ideal role. This dynamic can push up unemployment among recent graduates, specifically. We’re actually seeing this in the data: the unemployment rate for young people with bachelor’s degrees is higher than the overall unemployment rate for all college grads. It’s not because the economy doesn’t have jobs – it’s because there’s a mismatch between what new grads are looking for (or need financially) and what’s available to them as entry points.

To put it another way, the opportunity cost of taking a low-paying job right out of college has gone up because the stakes, like student loan repayment, are higher. And more graduates are saying “no thanks” to jobs that don’t meet the salary bar they require, which means they remain job seekers for longer. That, in turn, makes the cohort of recent grads as a whole have higher jobless numbers than one would expect in an otherwise decent economy. It’s a bit of a self-inflicted wound, but it’s hard to blame individuals; the system kind of set them up this way by making higher education so expensive. When I graduated in the (ahem) 20th century, I had friends who took very low-paying starter jobs (in journalism, social work, the arts, etc.) and lived with several roommates or ate ramen for a year or two – but crucially, many of them didn’t have student loans. They could afford to “struggle now to build experience” because they weren’t lugging a ball-and-chain of debt. Today’s graduates often don’t have that luxury. If you have a $1,000 loan payment kicking in six months after graduation, you might think twice about any job that doesn’t allow you to comfortably make that payment.

This phenomenon has a macro effect: fewer graduates are filling the plentiful lower-paying entry jobs, leaving those roles either vacant or filled by non-graduates, and more graduates are competing fiercely for the limited higher-paying entry jobs (like those at Fortune 500 companies, big tech, finance, etc.). If they don’t get those coveted roles, they sit on the sidelines or take a series of short-term gigs, all the while still applying for the next opening that looks like it could cover their bills. Thus, we see more “educated young unemployed” even as employers in some sectors say they can’t find enough entry-level talent. It’s a paradox fueled by the cost of college and the distribution of wages in entry-level work.

Lastly, the high cost of college is also causing some people to opt out or drop out, meaning a smaller percentage of young people even attend or finish college than might have if it were affordable. While on one hand, that could reduce competition among degree-holders, it also means some potential talent never went through that early professional pipeline at all, which can hurt certain fields. But the main point here is the increased selectivity of graduates in their job search. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a student say, “I have to earn at least X or I can’t make ends meet after graduation.” That financial reality narrows their search and ironically can leave them empty-handed for longer. It’s contributing to why you hear stories of graduates being underemployed – working part-time jobs that don’t require a degree while they hunt for something better, or living at home longer because they haven’t secured that solid income yet. All of this feeds into the perception (and reality) that the early-career job market is tough. It’s not necessarily because there are no jobs; it’s also because the stakes for the grads are so high that any job will do, and so more of them end up with no job rather than taking one that doesn’t meet their needs.

5. Government Downsizing Floods the Labor Market

One factor many people overlook when considering the entry-level job landscape is what’s happening in the federal government workforce. In the past year or so, there’s been an unprecedented reduction in federal jobs due to aggressive downsizing by the current administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative. President Trump, working closely with a team led by Elon Musk in this effort, has set out to dramatically shrink the federal payroll, and the numbers are staggering. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process of being cut or already eliminated. Entire agencies are being gutted or reorganized; hiring freezes and mass layoffs have been implemented across many departments. Just to illustrate, earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture offered about 15,000 employees a buyout package to resign. Tens of thousands of newer federal employees (those on probationary periods) were abruptly let go in a single sweep. Plans have been drawn up to reduce headcounts by huge percentages in various departments – some aiming for 40-50% cuts in staff. While court challenges have paused some of these actions, the direction is clear: the federal government, long one of the nation’s largest employers (and a great source of stable jobs for new grads through programs like the Pathways internships and entry-level analyst roles), is undergoing a massive contraction.

So, what does that have to do with the early-career job market? Two big things: increased labor supply and decreased entry-level openings. First, when you lay off a federal employee, that person doesn’t just disappear from the economy – they typically start looking for a new job elsewhere, often in the private sector or with state/local government, or government contractors. Multiply that by the many thousands, and suddenly you have a surge of job seekers entering the market. Many of these folks have experience, even if just a couple of years, and they might be vying for some of the same positions recent graduates are aiming at. For example, consider a 24-year-old who spent the last two years as an IT specialist at a federal agency, and now that position has been cut. That individual is now out there applying to tech companies or consulting firms, possibly for junior or mid-level roles. If you’re a brand-new computer science grad, you could find yourself interviewing for a job alongside that former federal employee who has actual workplace experience. That can make it harder for the true entry-level candidate to win the spot.

Even more directly, the government cuts also mean fewer entry-level jobs available in the government itself. Traditionally, a good chunk of new grads – especially those with degrees in political science, public administration, international relations, computer science, and many other fields – would find early-career opportunities working for the federal government. These could be roles like an analyst at the Department of Labor, a budget assistant at the Department of Education, a research assistant at a federal lab, etc. Those opportunities are drying up right now. With a hiring freeze and downsizing, agencies are not bringing in the usual cohort of fresh talent. In fact, some agencies are rescinding offers or cutting internship programs. For instance, it’s been reported that agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Voice of America, and even the US Agency for International Development have had virtually all their staff (including presumably new hires) put on leave or let go as part of the cuts. The pathway for a young person to start a career in federal service is narrowing, at least for the time being.

Now, some might say, “Well, those folks will just find jobs in the private sector, right?” Possibly, yes, but that circles back to the first point: they become additional competition for private sector jobs. Also, not every public sector skill translates perfectly to private roles, which means some of those laid-off workers might take a while to find their footing, remaining unemployed longer and contributing to the unemployment stats. And from the perspective of a fresh grad: one whole slice of the job market pie (government roles) has been taken off the table, pushing more of them to compete for the remaining slices. The labor supply of candidates has increased (from the influx of ex-federal employees and from grads who would have gone into government now going elsewhere), while the number of total jobs (especially secure entry-level ones) hasn’t grown in tandem – in fact, it’s shrunk by the number of government jobs cut. That simply makes for a tougher job hunt for everyone.

It’s worth noting that large-scale government layoffs or freezes are not a common occurrence in modern US history – typically, government employment is relatively stable or grows slowly over time. What we’re seeing now is a pretty unique situation, often politically charged, but its effect on the early-career job market is very real and very practical. I have talked to students who originally wanted to work in, say, environmental policy; normally, they might apply to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Energy. This year, those applications are going nowhere, so they’re pivoting to NGOs or consulting firms, increasing the applicant pools in those areas. Similarly, someone who dreamt of being a federal investigator now might be trying for a corporate compliance job instead – going up against others who also shifted gears. Any time a major employer contracts, it sends ripples through the labor market, and the U.S. federal government is as major as it gets.

In summary, the drive by “DOGE” to slim down government has effectively dumped a lot more job seekers into the market and removed a chunk of available jobs, especially those friendly to new grads. It’s an under-the-radar factor (unless you follow the news closely) that’s compounding the difficulties for early-career individuals right now.

The Bottom Line: It’s Not Just About AI

When you put all these pieces together – a cooled-off economy, the double-edged sword of AI, the broader competition from skills-based hiring, the financial pressures shaping graduate job choices, and the flood of workers from government cuts – it becomes clear that the challenges facing early-career job seekers come from multiple directions. AI might be the poster child for this moment (and certainly the most “buzzworthy” explanation), but as we’ve explored, it’s far from the only cause of the softer job market for recent graduates. The truth is more complicated and more surprising than a single technological disruption.

For students and new grads trying to navigate this landscape, understanding these factors can actually be empowering. It’s not about despairing that “robots took my job” – it’s about seeing the full context. Yes, you should stay on top of AI trends and make sure you’re tech-savvy, but you should also pay attention to economic signals in your industry (are companies in your field cutting back due to interest rates or inflation?), consider broadening your search (since a degree alone won’t guarantee anything, what other skills or experiences can you acquire to stand out?), and maybe re-examine expectations (a slightly lower paying job to start might still be a launchpad, especially if it’s stable and can lead to growth).

The job market will always have ebbs and flows. We had a boom, now a bit of a bust for entry-level hiring, and in time, things will likely swing again. New technologies will emerge beyond AI, policies will change, and economies will cycle. The class of 2023 or 2024 might be feeling the pinch, but by the class of 2026 or 2027, some of these factors could ease – perhaps inflation will be tamed and interest rates lowered, maybe AI will create as many jobs as it displaces, perhaps the political winds will shift and government hiring will resume, and maybe colleges will address costs (okay, that one might be wishful thinking).

In any case, recognizing that AI isn’t single-handedly “killing” early-career jobs, at least not in a vacuum, is important. We do ourselves a disservice if we pin everything on one scapegoat and ignore the rest. The truth is, early-career jobs are being squeezed by a confluence of economic, technological, social, and political pressures. The good news is that pressures can be relieved. Economies recover, societies adapt, and young talent – like those students and grads out there reading this – will find new ways to thrive. As someone who has been connecting students and employers for many years, I’ve seen tougher markets than this, and I’ve seen recoveries too. So hang in there, keep learning and adapting, and keep an eye on all the factors at play. The more you know about the real reasons behind the trends, the better you can navigate them. And that truth, I hope, is not just surprising but also useful as you chart your early career journey.