LinkedIn Executive Warns AI Threatens Entry-Level Jobs as Graduate Unemployment Rises (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0177645753
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/05/19/187253/linkedin-executive-warns-ai-threatens-entry-level-jobs-as-graduate-unemployment-rises
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/linkedin-ai-entry-level-jobs.html
"Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder," wrote Aneesh Raman in a New York Times column, citing examples across technology, law, and retail where AI is replacing tasks traditionally assigned to junior workers. A LinkedIn survey of 3,000 executives found 63% believe AI will eventually handle mundane entry-level tasks, with professionals holding advanced degrees likely facing greater disruption than those without.
Some firms are adapting by redesigning roles. KPMG now assigns recent graduates tax work previously reserved for more experienced employees, while Macfarlanes has early-career lawyers interpreting complex contracts once handled by senior colleagues. Though economic uncertainty also impacts hiring, Raman warned that delayed career entry can cost young workers approximately $22,000 in earnings over a decade.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/linkedin-ai-entry-level-jobs.html
So if entry level workers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
cannot gain employment to become more experienced where do companies recruit their middle experienced workers from ?
I suspect that they will try to poach them from other companies or other countries that have not replaced new intake workers with AI. I can see this causing a big headache in a few years time.
Re:So if entry level workers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a headache skilled trades (blue collar work, like machinists and plumbers) is facing right now (though for different reasons), as experienced employees age out and retire, and for every 10 retirees, only two young people enter the trade.
Re: (Score:3)
> Wages for those kinds of workers have not kept pace with inflation, at all.
Neither has white color work, and it isn't really true. The labor shorting in skilled trades has been going on long enough that companies has already responded with higher wages, and instead of incurring six figures in student loans before you get an entry level job for minimum wage, you get paid while you're learning, and made a middle class living when that's done. Reinvest in additional training and certification, and you can live pretty well. A welder with the right certs can make $300k/year by age 30 w
Re: (Score:2)
> welder with the right certs can make $300k/year by age 30
Maybe if you are welding under water in dangerous conditions or have some other rare specialty, but the typical welder is getting paid chickenfeed and its a miserable job.
[1]https://www.payscale.com/resea... [payscale.com]
"The average hourly pay for a Welder is $21.89 in 2025"
Electricians are often cited as a lucrative career as well, but that's not the case.
[2]https://www.servicetitan.com/b... [servicetitan.com]
"4-7 years of experience, the median is $76,600, or $36.83 per hour"
[1] https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Welder/Hourly_Rate
[2] https://www.servicetitan.com/blog/electrician-salary
Re: (Score:2)
"...in a few years time" that means it's the next CEO who will have to worry about that
Re: (Score:2)
Do you expect they are thinking this far ahead?
Re: (Score:2)
> I can see this causing a big headache in a few years time.
That's a problem for Future-Corp. Only next quarter matters to Present-CSuite, and they will be Former-CSuite before Future-Corp has to deal with it.
Re: So if entry level workers ... (Score:1)
The glorified AI around are only pattern matchers. We are not going to find AGI for another 50-100 years(even more). The current situation is nothing but a bubble that Is going to come back and bite us soon. But we already have invested billions and trillions into this eventhough we are well past the wins. This is going to be a lot painful than the dot com bust.
It isn't that companies won't invest in workers (Score:2)
It is just that companies will not invest in U.S. workers. Apple is the ultimate example having spent $276 BILLION dollars to upskill workers in China and a comparative $0 (to 3 significant figures) upskilling U.S. workers.
If AI is so good, shouldn't that alter entry jobs (Score:3, Interesting)
AI seems like a great tool to augment humans right?
So if AI is really that good, then you should be able to hire entry level workers for entry level pay, and use AI to do senior level work.
Yet it's entry level people having the hardest time. Hmm!
Re: (Score:3)
I guess it's like "one senior plus one junior plus AI" can do the same amount of work as "one senior plus five juniors" before.
How senior devs are really made (Score:5, Funny)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioi7DPTHG6A
How College Dies. (Score:5, Interesting)
> Raman warned that delayed career entry can cost young workers approximately $22,000 in earnings over a decade.
Given the fact that most young people are doing that whole “delayed career entry” thing because they’re spending 4+ years and $80K+ on education that has resulted in a 30% unemployment rate, followed by crushing student debt loans lasting 20+ years, $22K over a decade sounds like a fucking bargain by comparison.
A 30% unemployment rate translates into financially fucking pointless real quick-like for those considering higher education. If the College Industrial Complex has to be slapped back into reality with bankruptcy, so be it. Just don’t dare try and sell me they’re Too Big To Fail. That shit ain’t gonna fly again.
We can either make education affordable again, or we can watch it die the painful death it deserves right now. If we sustain the status quo, I fear graduates will be reduced to validating financially fucking pointless on behalf of greed and arrogance.
It makes me wonder (Score:1)
My child just turned 9 years old, and his 529 plan has about $82K in it. Even if I don't contribute another dime, it isn't unreasonable to expect it to have $160K in it by the time he hits college age. More realistically, we will continue dropping $400/month into it for at least another 5 years and his balance will be $200K by the time he hits college age.
So, it makes me wonder, should we spend the money when the time comes? Even with inflation, $200K should be enough to buy a decent undergraduate degree. B
"Breaking first is the bottom rung (Score:2)
of the career ladder", but this is just the beginning. AI will be climbing that ladder and nobody's job will be safe.
This could actually be a good thing if some kind of basic income could be established. Most jobs suck anyways, you could be freed from a lifetime of drudgery and stress. We've got to somehow give the AI a strong incentive to keep us alive and happy.
If it wasn't AI (Score:1)
It would be outsourcing to other countries. Just admit that companies don't want to employ people anymore and just run automated money printers. See also why people "mine" cryptocurrency.
Re:If it wasn't AI (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it that you've never run your own business, and have only worked for immense, drab conglomerates that make you think of them as faceless blobs that owe you a job.
Employees are expensive, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. Of course you want to replace them if possible. This may turn out to be impractical.
It certainly isn't happening due to "AI", which is cheap, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. The only bright side about it is, it won't steal from the workplace. It may decide to order 500,000,000 paper clips... but, placing the blame on AI means that managers can dodge responsibility, and after all... managers are expensive, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy. They enjoy dodging responsibility as much as you do.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> Of course you want to replace them if possible. This may turn out to be impractical.
It's especially impractical to replace them in a way that leaves them destitute. Three meals from a revolution, my guy.
> It certainly isn't happening due to "AI", which is cheap, often unreliable, and frequently batshit crazy.
Managers are also cheap, in that they don't want to pay for talent, let alone competence.
Re: If it wasn't AI (Score:1)
Why isn't Trump for basic income? Isn't Musk?
Re: If it wasn't AI (Score:2)
Maybe you just suck ass at recruiting