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As the Class of 2025 steps off the graduation stage and into the workforce, they’re hitting an unexpected wall: artificial intelligence. While headlines have focused on A.I. shaking up mid-career white-collar work, what’s happening at the very start of the career ladder may be more quietly consequential.
Entry-level jobs — traditionally where young professionals learn the ropes — are disappearing or being reshaped by automation. Junior coders are seeing simple debugging tasks outsourced to advanced software tools. First-year paralegals and associates are watching document review, once a rite of passage, vanish into A.I. workflows. In retail, the face-to-face starter roles are increasingly managed by chatbots.
The piece, published by The New York Times, was written by Aneesh Raman, chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn, who urges that we must not miss this moment: “Fixing entry-level work is the first step to fixing all work.”
This shift comes at a precarious time. Since September 2022, unemployment among college graduates has risen 30%, outpacing the broader labor force. Gen Z, already pessimistic about its future, is now confronting the erosion of entry-level opportunities just as they begin their careers.
Executives acknowledge the change. In a LinkedIn survey of more than 3,000 vice presidents and above, 63% said A.I. will likely take over many of the mundane tasks typically given to entry-level workers. Yet, most also agree that young employees bring fresh thinking businesses need.
The disruption isn’t limited to tech. Finance, travel, food service, and professional services are all beginning to see traditional steppingstones vanish. And while some of this is fueled by economic uncertainty — like global trade instability — the structural impact of A.I. seems undeniable.
What’s lost isn’t just a job. Research from the Center for American Progress found that a six-month gap in employment at age 22 can cost a worker $22,000 over the following decade. For those without elite networks or family support, the vanishing of entry-level work could mean never getting a foothold at all.
Some institutions are rethinking how to prepare young workers. Schools like Carnegie Mellon and American University are embedding A.I. training directly into their curricula. A national A.I. consortium backed by companies like Intel and Microsoft is partnering with community colleges to align degrees with workforce needs.
Meanwhile, forward-looking companies are redesigning what “entry-level” means. At KPMG, new grads now take on high-value tax assignments with the help of A.I. At Macfarlanes, junior lawyers are interpreting complex contracts, a task that used to fall to their seniors.
The payoff could be big. MIT Sloan research shows that low-skilled and newer workers see the greatest productivity gains from working alongside A.I., not being replaced by it. And Gen Z seems ready to adapt: 40% say they’d take a pay cut for a job with more growth opportunities.
The bottom line? Fixing work starts with fixing first jobs. We must rebuild the early rungs of the career ladder to reflect the realities of a tech-driven economy — jobs that train agility over repetition and give young workers a true chance to begin.
The piece was written by Aneesh Raman, chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn, who urges that we must not miss this moment: “Fixing entry-level work is the first step to fixing all work.”