Senior people are preferred over 'new recruits' in the AI era
In a study published this month by the AI Enterprise Institute (AIDE), the authors screened more than 161,000 job postings from S&P 500 companies (the 500 largest public companies in the US) posted on LinkedIn in January. As a result, they found 8,140 job postings related to AI, such as data analytics or machine learning engineers. However, 71% of the news are for senior positions, 16% for mid-level positions and only 13% for low-level positions.
According to CNN, the new findings highlight the challenges young people face when finding jobs in the booming AI field. Large businesses are competing fiercely to attract the same pool of experienced talent, raising questions about the development of the next generation of talent.
"Data shows that the labor market is shrinking. AI-related job opportunities are real, but only for those already in high positions," said Paul Cheek, CEO of AIDE Institute.
Large companies want experienced talent to help navigate the volatile AI craze, Cheek explains, even though this also poses risks to themselves. If young talent goes elsewhere, such as a growing AI startup, large companies may be at a disadvantage in the long term.
Not only AI, many other professions also tend to reduce recruitment of young people. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted this during a conversation at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2026 in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
"I think this year we'll start to see AI potentially impacting entry-level positions. I think there's already some evidence that we're also sensing, like the rate of hiring for these positions is slowing down," Hassabis said.
Amodei agreed, saying signs are starting to appear in the software and programming sectors. "I can see that right now at Anthroponic. I think at some point, at the entry level and mid-level, the company will need fewer people instead of more. We're thinking about how to handle that properly internally," he said.
According to the latest research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for new graduates is 5.6%, much higher than the general unemployment rate of 4.2% in March. The gap between the two rates has widened in recent years, in contrast to the period immediately before and after Covid-19.
Research from Stanford University shows that recruitment of young people will stagnate from the end of 2022, around the same time OpenAI releases ChatGPT. In the period from the end of 2022 to September 2025, in the occupations most affected by AI, the number of young workers with jobs decreased by 6% while older workers increased by 6-9%.
User Hiro on the content creation platform Medium shared that simple, repetitive tasks that were previously assigned to rookies are now handled by AI. Therefore, companies only need high-level oversight of AI outputs. "It means you need experience to join, but the traditional path to gaining experience gradually no longer exists," Hiro said.
Young workers can gain experience outside by participating in skills improvement training courses, but this method has limitations. Hiro paid $4,000 for a training course, but realized the new skills were only effective for about eight months, then became obsolete as new AI models became available.
According to Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll and human resources management services company ADP, AI will not only change the number of jobs created and lost, but also reshape the tasks and responsibilities of each job. ADP is working with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab to separate responsibilities and assign economic value to each task. The results are expected to be widely announced, helping businesses move employees to higher-value jobs, while also helping job seekers determine appropriate learning and training paths.
Contrary to a series of pessimistic comments, Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, said that predictions about the "job apocalypse" due to AI are overblown. In the Platformer podcast broadcast on June 23, he said that AI can change half of office jobs, not eliminate them completely.
"Don't look at a static picture of the world and say a job will no longer exist, the person doing that job will be unemployed. In fact, new jobs will appear," Garman said, citing the introduction of Microsoft Excel as changing jobs, not eliminating them.
Garman emphasizes the value of young, entry-level workers, rating them as one of the best employee groups due to low recruitment costs, ease of training on company culture, and often eagerness to learn new tools. Business Insider said this is part of the reason Amazon is hiring more than 11,000 interns and entry-level software development engineers globally this year.
"Young employees bring energy, excitement and new perspectives. If you only have the same people who have been working for the past 15 years, you won't get that energy, enthusiasm and new ideas," Garman said.
Thu Thao compiled