Latest news with #AllisonShrivastava
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This six-figure role was predicted to be the next big thing—it's already obsolete thanks to AI
Those who banked on becoming a prompt engineer will likely have to pivot into new areas of tech as AI's innovations have made the job title obsolete. Once hyped as a career paying $200K with no coding required, prompt engineering was supposed to be the next big thing. However, as technology has advanced faster than expected, being an 'AI whisperer' has shifted from a unique job title to a skill needed by everyone to succeed. The tech industry's 'hottest new job' has been extinguished almost as fast as it caught flame. Back in 2023—when ChatGPT exploded onto the global radar—prompt engineering was promised as a new career path for those eager to become master 'AI whisperers.' With the potential for a $200,000 salary and no coding required, it by all means sounded like a dream job focused on properly utilizing generative AI to solve business problems. However, despite AI skills being more in demand than ever (and education institutions creating prompt engineering programs), prompt engineer as a job title did not really take off as some people hoped, according to Allison Shrivastava, an economist at Indeed. 'Prompt engineering as a skill is still definitely a good thing to have, but it's not an entire title,' Shrivastava told Fortune. On Indeed, searches for prompt engineering roles peaked in April 2023—and rapid advancements in AI technology are mostly to blame. Just a few years ago, generative AI was hallucination-filled and often struggled to understand user intent, but today, these tools are more human-like than ever and can even prompt questions back to the user if something needs clarification. The whiplash in the skills and job market is just another gut punch to Gen Zers, who have struggled to get their careers off the ground. In today's rapidly changing world, the skills that are in demand when someone enters college might be completely obsolete by the time they graduate. Prompt engineering's skill value As employers increasingly demand workers increase their use of AI (and with it, their productivity), prompt engineering has shifted from something exclusive to the tech field to a skill that all workers need to master. In fact, LinkedIn said AI literacy is the No. 1 fastest-growing skill in the U.S., and according to a survey, 99% of HR leaders report having been asked to add more AI skills to job requirements. However, despite this purported demand, the share of job postings is still relatively small, Shrivastava said. Generative-AI terms only appear in three out of every 1,000 job postings on Indeed—though mentions grew 170% last year, according to an Indeed report. To top that off, some two-thirds of jobs on Indeed demand skills that AI can already handle. But despite the ups and downs of the job market, Shrivastava encourages those on the job hunt to be bullish when applying—even if you don't check all the education or skill qualifications. 'Don't be shied away from applying based on solid requirements,' she said. 'You never know." The prompt-engineering party may have been over before it started Those in the tech space are likely not too surprised by prompt engineering not coming to fruition. In fact, in 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted its demise. 'I don't think we'll be doing prompt engineering in five years,' Altman said in 2022. 'This will be integrated everywhere; just with text, or voice, depending on the context, you will just interface in language and get the computer to do whatever you want it to do.' However, last month Altman told entrepreneur and social media host Varun Mayya that prompt engineering was an example 'near and dear to his heart' of an entirely new job that was hard to conceptualize existing decades ago. And while prompt engineer may not be on more people's résumés moving forward as a job title, he hopes the mindset behind it remains a priority. 'I really encourage people to have their own conviction on what things are going to be like,' he said. 'Just because something is not a historically valuable or high-status job, doesn't mean it won't be in the future.' This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New college grads face a tougher job market — again
This year's new college graduates are heading into a tougher job market than last year's — who had it worse off than the class before that — just as the Trump administration cracks down on student loan repayments. Recent grads' unemployment rate was 5.8% as of March, up from 4.6% a year earlier, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported last week. The share of new graduates working jobs that don't require their degrees — a situation known as 'underemployment' — hit 41.2% in March, rising from 40.6% that same month in 2024. 'Right now things are pretty frozen,' Allison Shrivastava, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, said of entry-level prospects. 'A lot of employers and job seekers are both kind of deer-in-headlights, not sure what to do.' That squares with Julia Abbott's experience. 'I just feel pretty screwed as it is right now,' said the psychology major who's graduating this month from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She said she's applied to over 200 roles in social media and marketing, but 'minimal interviews come out of it.' Internship postings typically rise sharply in early spring, but they're lagging 11 percentage points behind last year's levels, Indeed said in April. The hiring platform sees demand for interns as a stronger gauge of new grads' job prospects than entry-level postings, which increasingly target people with at least a few years' experience. In a worrying sign for the class of 2025, internship openings are 'far below where they were in 2023 and 2022, when the labor market was exceptionally competitive,' Shrivastava said. Young college grads have historically seen lower unemployment levels than the labor force overall, and they still do. But as The Atlantic pointed out Wednesday, this gap has narrowed to a record low, taking some of the shine off the traditional benefits of a bachelor's degree. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is restarting the 'involuntary' repayment of federal student loans in default, a move that could sap money from paychecks, tax refunds, Social Security payments and disability and retirement benefits from millions of borrowers. Repayments were paused during President Donald Trump's first term in 2020 in response to Covid-19. The pandemic-era reprieve from forced collections ends Monday, just as a new TransUnion report finds a record share of federal student loan borrowers are 90 days or more past due and at risk of default — at 20.5% as of February, up 10 percentage points from five years earlier. The debt crackdown comes as workers across the labor force confront a tougher hiring landscape. Employers added a better-than-expected 177,000 jobs in April, government data showed Friday, but analysts were quick to flag warning signs ahead. Average pay growth has slowed to a crawl, and unemployment metrics indicate it's taking longer for people looking for work to secure it. While the latest jobs numbers point to a 'resilient' labor market, 'we should curb our enthusiasm going forward given the backdrop of trade policies that will likely be a drag on the economy,' Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said in a statement Friday. 'The outlook remains very uncertain.' The murky jobs forecast coincides with broader economic turbulence fueled by Trump's ongoing trade war. A slew of major companies have warned about tariff impacts in recent days. All but the wealthiest households are tightening their budgets, and consumer outlooks plunged to a 13-year low in a closely watched Conference Board survey released Tuesday. Some of the spending that is taking place reflects shoppers and businesses racing to make purchases before tariffs drive up costs for everything from cars to frozen fish and fireworks. These headwinds are making many employers increasingly cautious about hiring young graduates. Employers have pulled back plans to hire more new grads over just the last six months, according to a February and March survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which polled major companies including Chevron, PepsiCo and Southwest Airlines. While most said their new-grad recruitment plans are holding steady, the share of respondents planning to expand entry-level hiring dipped to 24.6% this spring. That's down from 27% last fall and the lowest rate since autumn 2020, during the depths of the pandemic. In March, NACE released salary projections showing a mixed picture for the class of 2025, with social sciences graduates set to see a 3.6% drop in pay since last year, while agriculture and natural resources majors were on track for a 2.8% bump over their '24 predecessors. The estimates, however, were based on employer survey data from last fall, weeks before Trump took office. 'I'm not surprised that new hiring is being restricted,' said Andy West, a senior partner at the consulting firm McKinsey who advises CEOs on corporate strategy and finance. He said some clients are increasingly discussing ways to 'reallocate resources' amid tariffs and other macroeconomic worries, he said. As employers hunt for cost cuts and stability, many tend to zero in on expenses that fluctuate over time, including payrolls. 'When it comes to hiring and talent, often these are very short-term decisions around slowing down,' he said. Class of '25 job seekers are adjusting their expectations to the tighter market. More than half have ditched the 'dream job' plans they entered college with, according to a February survey by the grads-focused hiring platform Handshake. And 56% of current seniors are somewhat or very pessimistic about launching into the workforce right now. That's about the same share as last year, but outlooks are down more sharply in fields like computer science, where over a quarter of seniors with that major voiced extreme pessimism. Anxiety around landing a first full-time job is common among college students, but the deep uncertainty this year threatens to put a damper on commencement season. 'I can't really celebrate my past four years,' said Abbott, the JMU senior. 'It just feels really scary, like walking into this world and not having something set out for me.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
05-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
New college grads face a tougher job market — again
This year's new college graduates are heading into a tougher job market than last year's — who had it worse off than the class before that — just as the Trump administration cracks down on student loan repayments. Recent grads' unemployment rate was 5.8% as of March, up from 4.6% a year earlier, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported last week. The share of new graduates working jobs that don't require their degrees — a situation known as 'underemployment' — hit 41.2% in March, rising from 40.6% that same month in 2024. 'Right now things are pretty frozen,' Allison Shrivastava, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, said of entry-level prospects. 'A lot of employers and job seekers are both kind of deer-in-headlights, not sure what to do.' Employers and job seekers are both kind of deer-in-headlights, not sure what to do. Allison Shrivastava, economist, Indeed Hiring Lab That squares with Julia Abbott's experience. 'I just feel pretty screwed as it is right now,' said the psychology major who's graduating this month from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She said she's applied to over 200 roles in social media and marketing, but 'minimal interviews come out of it.' Internship postings typically rise sharply in early spring, but they're lagging 11 percentage points behind last year's levels, Indeed said in April. The hiring platform sees demand for interns as a stronger gauge of new grads' job prospects than entry-level postings, which increasingly target people with at least a few years' experience. In a worrying sign for the class of 2025, internship openings are 'far below where they were in 2023 and 2022, when the labor market was exceptionally competitive,' Shrivastava said. Young college grads have historically seen lower unemployment levels than the labor force overall, and they still do. But as The Atlantic pointed out Wednesday, this gap has narrowed to a record low, taking some of the shine off the traditional benefits of a bachelor's degree. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is restarting the 'involuntary' repayment of federal student loans in default, a move that could sap money from paychecks, tax refunds, Social Security payments and disability and retirement benefits from millions of borrowers. Repayments were paused during President Donald Trump's first term in 2020 in response to Covid-19. The pandemic-era reprieve from forced collections ends Monday, just as a new TransUnion report finds a record share of federal student loan borrowers are 90 days or more past due and at risk of default — at 20.5% as of February, up 10 percentage points from five years earlier. The debt crackdown comes as workers across the labor force confront a tougher hiring landscape. Employers added a better-than-expected 177,000 jobs in April, government data showed Friday, but analysts were quick to flag warning signs ahead. Average pay growth has slowed to a crawl, and unemployment metrics indicate it's taking longer for people looking for work to secure it. While the latest jobs numbers point to a 'resilient' labor market, 'we should curb our enthusiasm going forward given the backdrop of trade policies that will likely be a drag on the economy,' Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings, said in a statement Friday. 'The outlook remains very uncertain.' The murky jobs forecast coincides with broader economic turbulence fueled by Trump's ongoing trade war. A slew of major companies have warned about tariff impacts in recent days. All but the wealthiest households are tightening their budgets, and consumer outlooks plunged to a 13-year low in a closely watched Conference Board survey released Tuesday. Some of the spending that is taking place reflects shoppers and businesses racing to make purchases before tariffs drive up costs for everything from cars to frozen fish and fireworks. These headwinds are making many employers increasingly cautious about hiring young graduates. Employers have pulled back plans to hire more new grads over just the last six months, according to a February and March survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which polled major companies including Chevron, PepsiCo and Southwest Airlines. While most said their new-grad recruitment plans are holding steady, the share of respondents planning to expand entry-level hiring dipped to 24.6% this spring. That's down from 27% last fall and the lowest rate since autumn 2020, during the depths of the pandemic. In March, NACE released salary projections showing a mixed picture for the class of 2025, with social sciences graduates set to see a 3.6% drop in pay since last year, while agriculture and natural resources majors were on track for a 2.8% bump over their '24 predecessors. The estimates, however, were based on employer survey data from last fall, weeks before Trump took office. 'I'm not surprised that new hiring is being restricted,' said Andy West, a senior partner at the consulting firm McKinsey who advises CEOs on corporate strategy and finance. He said some clients are increasingly discussing ways to 'reallocate resources' amid tariffs and other macroeconomic worries, he said. As employers hunt for cost cuts and stability, many tend to zero in on expenses that fluctuate over time, including payrolls. It just feels really scary, like walking into this world and not having something set out for me. Julia Abbott, James Madison University, class of 2025 'When it comes to hiring and talent, often these are very short-term decisions around slowing down,' he said. Class of '25 job seekers are adjusting their expectations to the tighter market. More than half have ditched the 'dream job' plans they entered college with, according to a February survey by the grads-focused hiring platform Handshake. And 56% of current seniors are somewhat or very pessimistic about launching into the workforce right now. That's about the same share as last year, but outlooks are down more sharply in fields like computer science, where over a quarter of seniors with that major voiced extreme pessimism. Anxiety around landing a first full-time job is common among college students, but the deep uncertainty this year threatens to put a damper on commencement season. 'I can't really celebrate my past four years,' said Abbott, the JMU senior. 'It just feels really scary, like walking into this world and not having something set out for me.'
CNN
31-03-2025
- Business
- CNN
The job market is ‘frozen.' That's not a good sign for DOGE casualties
Summary Job applications posted on Indeed from federal workers at DOGE-affected agencies spiked in February and were 75% above 2022 levels. Business uncertainty about President Trump's economic policies is contributing to reduced hiring in white-collar sectors. Indeed economist Allison Shrivastava describes the labor market as "a little bit frozen" but currently stable. Labor Department data shows unemployment claims remain steady with 224,000 initial claims filed last week. The Trump administration's culling of government programs and agencies has resulted in an unprecedented wave of federal workers joining the ranks of job seekers — and new data shows a spike in job applications from agencies impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency. Those job hunts are coming at a time when rising uncertainty around President Donald Trump's economic agenda is clouding businesses' decision-making and further slowing hiring — especially for specialized and white-collar roles. They're entering a labor market that's 'a little bit frozen,' but stable for now, noted Allison Shrivastava, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. That was underscored in new data released Thursday by the Labor Department: Initial claims for unemployment benefits aren't spiking — in fact, they're mostly unchanged from last week. There were an estimated 224,000 initial claims for jobless benefits for the week ended March 22, a decline of 1,000 from the prior week's upwardly revised tally. The closely watched Labor Department report also showed that more federal workers are filing for unemployment than in the past; however, they aren't escalating on a weekly basis. The number of federal workers who filed initial claims under the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees program totaled 821 for the week ended March 15, that's down from 1,066 filings the week before, Thursday's report showed. The recent stretch of labor market data is showing 'two separate worlds,' RSM US economist Joe Brusuelas told CNN on Wednesday. 'One in which firms are managing their [workforces] incredibly carefully, because we still are under conditions where labor is tight; there's going to be constraints on labor supply, and that's what's contributing to the remarkable stability in overall claims,' he said. 'The other world is federal government employment, where, first, there's likely more people who are unemployed than the claims would suggest,' he added. 'Second, individuals are clearly beginning to hedge their bets around employment and are actively seeking work.' Data released earlier this week from employment search site Indeed highlights an increase in federal workers searching for new jobs: In February, DOGE-adjacent applications rose 50%, ending the month at 75% above their 2022 levels. It's common after presidential inaugurations for there to be an uptick in job applications filed by federal workers — but nothing ever to this scale, Shrivastava told CNN in an interview. 'This is definitely unprecedented,' she said. 'Not something we've seen before.' 'This is a very specialized group of people that are looking for jobs,' she said, noting jumps in unique keywords such as 'horticulture,' 'employee relations,' and 'policy analyst.' White-collar jobs have been harder to come by in recent years, and that's largely due to the pandemic. During that time, hiring soared in sectors such as technology, financial services and consulting as the global health crisis and low interest rates fueled remote work and altered consumer spending patterns. However, what was expected to be a 'new normal' eventually shifted back to more familiar, pre-pandemic activity. Technology firms were the poster children of over-investment: Workforce levels became bloated and, in some cases, layoffs soon followed. But, by and large, hiring has been petering out in most white-collar industries in part due to this recalibration, but also due to rising costs, uncertainty, and technology advancement, Shrivastava said. In the meantime, other areas of the US jobs market have picked up a lot of the slack. Health care, leisure and hospitality, and government (mainly state and local) have driven job gains in recent years — a reflection of dynamics such as an aging population; post-pandemic returns to in-person services; and the backfilling of roles in the public sector, which played second fiddle to a private sector that was seeing steeper pay gains. The pace of job growth has slowed during the past year. That's been expected: The blockbuster pandemic recovery couldn't continue forever; plus, the Federal Reserve's inflation-busting high interest rates were designed to curb demand. But in recent months, there has been a concerning trend: The churn that's needed for a healthy labor market has slowed significantly. Businesses aren't hiring as much, workers aren't eager to quit, and those without jobs are staying on the sidelines for longer. The latest Labor Department data showed that continuing claims — those filed by people who have received at least a week or unemployment benefits — dropped slightly from the prior week but remain elevated over the past year. Economists initially chalked this up to election-year uncertainty, ongoing adjustments to over-hiring, the cumulative effect of fast-rising prices and the sheer weight of interest rates being at a 23-year high. Once the election was decided, consumer and business sentiment shot higher, and hiring activity increased, according to an array of surveys and economic data. That 'Trump bump,' however, has given way to rising levels of economic uncertainty from businesses and consumers who are reporting jitteriness about the effect of sweeping policy actions such as broad-based tariffs, mass deportations and the slashing of federal jobs and funding. 'We've been a little bit frozen for a while; you've seen those headline (jobs) numbers, and frozen is a kind of stability,' said Shrivastava. 'But the longer that goes on, the more likely it is that we'll have impacts … like frostbite.'
