Latest news with #AsherBantock
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
AI disrupting entry-level job market for college graduates: Report
(NewsNation) — As artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent, many traditional entry-level jobs for recent college graduates are changing or being eliminated altogether. A new report from SignalFire, a data-driven venture capital firm, suggests AI is responsible for a 25% decrease in the hiring of recent graduates by major tech companies, including Meta, Microsoft and Google. Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, told TechCrunch the decline equated to thousands of fewer hires in 2024 than in 2023. The report highlighted that hiring of recent graduates by big tech companies fell 25% last year and is down 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Oxford Economics determined that graduates — those aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor's degree or higher — have contributed 12% to the 85% rise in the national unemployment rate since mid-2023. Those graduates make up only 5% of the total workforce, meaning they're contributing more than double their share to unemployment statistics. Recent graduates also have a nearly 6% unemployment rate, beating out the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. Recent college graduates increasingly unemployed, research finds Experts believe AI is a major reason many are struggling to find jobs. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI startup Anthropic, warned Axios that AI could eliminate up to half of all entry-level white-collar jobs, potentially increasing unemployment by 10% to 20%. Aneesh Raman, LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, suggested in a New York Times op-ed that the 'bottom rung' of the career ladder is breaking. 'In tech, advanced coding tools are creeping into the tasks of writing simple code and debugging — the ways junior developers gain experience,' he wrote. 'In law firms, junior paralegals and first-year associates who once cut their teeth on document review are handing weeks of work over to AI tools to complete in a matter of hours.' AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are taking over customer service and support roles. Data entry and processing roles are being automated. Even retail inventory management and fast-food drive-thrus at fast-food chains like Taco Bell and Wendy's are now using AI-powered voice assistants. Scott Baradell, spokesperson for media company LaborStrong, compared this shift to the automation wave that hit blue-collar manufacturing jobs in the 1980s. Thousands of classmates' deepfakes found in student's dorm: Police 'You could think of it as the white-collar version of what happened to many blue-collar manufacturing jobs back in, starting in the '80s and onward with robots and things taking over those kinds of assembly-line jobs that people had long counted on,' he said. 'Then, many people thought, 'Oh, they won't be able to take all these jobs and automate them' — and they did.' Despite these changes, some jobs likely remain beyond AI's reach and are in high demand. Airline pilots and air traffic control operators, for example, require human judgment and experience that AI can't replicate. To protect their roles, some workers are turning to unions. Last year, the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA demanded protections to ensure AI wouldn't replace their jobs, and dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts called for a complete ban on port automation. Experts have advised that if recent graduates can't find an entry-level position in their desired field, they should consider starting in related roles to build skills and transition once they have more experience. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI may already be shrinking entry-level jobs in tech, new research suggests
If and when AI will start replacing human labor has been the subject of numerous debates. While it's still hard to say with certainty if AI is beginning to take over roles previously done by humans, a recent survey from the World Economic Forum found that 40% of employers intend to cut staff where AI can automate tasks. Researchers at SignalFire, a data-driven VC firm that tracks job movements of over 600 million employees and 80 million companies on LinkedIn, believe they may be seeing first signs of AI's impact on hiring. When analyzing hiring trends, SignalFire noticed that tech companies recruited fewer recent college graduates in 2024 than they did in 2023. However, tech companies, especially the top 15 big tech businesses, ramped up their hiring of experienced professionals. Specifically, SignalFire found that big tech companies reduced the hiring of new graduates by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023. Meanwhile, graduate recruitment at startups decreased by 11% compared to the prior year. Although SignalFire wouldn't reveal exactly how many fewer grads were hired according to their data, a spokesperson told us it was thousands. True, adoption of new AI tools might not fully explain the dip in recent grad hiring but Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, says there's "convincing evidence" that AI is a significant contributing factor. Entry-level jobs are susceptible to automation because they often involve routine, low-risk tasks that generative AI handles well. AI's new coding, debugging, financial research, and software installation abilities could mean companies need fewer people to do that type of work. AI's ability to handle certain entry-level tasks means some jobs for new graduates could soon be obsolete. Gabe Stengel, the founder of AI financial analyst startup Rogo, started his career at Lazard investment bank where he helped large pharma companies buy biotech startups. Rogo's tool "can do almost all the work I did in the analysis of those companies," Stengel said on stage at Newcomer's financial technology summit last week, "We can put together the materials, diligence the company, look through their financials." While most large investment banks haven't explicitly reduced analyst hiring due to AI yet, executives at firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley previously considered cutting junior staff hires by up to two-thirds and lowering the pay of those they hire because the work with AI is not as demanding as before, the New York Times reported last year. Although AI's threat to low-skilled jobs is real, tech companies' need for experienced professionals is still rising. According to SignalFire's report, big tech companies increased hiring by 27% for professionals with two to five years of experience, while startups hired 14% more individuals in that same seniority range. A frustrating paradox emerges for recent graduates: they can't get hired without experience, but they can't get experience without being hired. While this dilemma is not new, Heather Doshay, SignaFire's people and talent partner, says it is considerably exacerbated by AI. Dashay's advice to new grads: master AI tools. "AI won't take your job if you're the one who's best at using it," she said. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
