It’s time to address the looming crisis in entry-level work.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Artificial intelligence has not so far produced a clean story of mass unemployment. Aggregate employment in developed countries remains broadly stable, and recent assessments have found limited evidence that AI has shifted the headline numbers. But a troubling change may be hiding beneath the surface: the quiet weakening of the first rung of the career ladder. The most worrisome evidence is showing up exactly where we should expect it first: in early-career hiring. A working paper released in November 2025 by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab found that workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations experienced a 16% relative decline in employment after the spread of generative AI, even after controlling for other factors that might affect firms’ employment decisions. An Anthropic report from March 2026 provides suggestive evidence that led to a similar conclusion. More experienced workers in those same occupations did not suffer the same decline. Employment is not also declining in the entry-level jobs with low AI exposure. The concern is specific to early-career jobs that are exposed to AI. That is not a minor signal. It suggests that firms may be using AI to substitute for the junior tasks through which people traditionally gain their first foothold—at least for those in jobs where generative AI is used extensively, like software developers, customer service representatives, computer programmers, and information systems managers. The time is now to make changes in the way we train, prepare, and support young people who are about to enter the workforce. Educational institutions need to reorient for the era of an AI-augmented workforce. Governments must incentivize businesses to hire and train early-career workers. Businesses, in turn, need to recognize the importance of developing a long-term workforce experienced in AI—a process that begins with entry-level workers. And students themselves should take on the responsibility of not only becoming AI fluent