Latest news with #internships
Forbes
3 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
AI May Be Erasing Entry-Level Jobs
Purple ID card holder on black background with text Entry-level worker - refers to starting jobs ... More require little or no professional experience allow first jobbers just graduating to enter workforce There's a new report out on jobs this month, and it's not reassuring a lot of people who were worried about job displacement, especially for new graduates and less experienced workers. We know intuitively that that is a hard time to come of age as someone pondering a career. There are a lot of question marks around what AI is going to do to the job market. However, the wide-ranging report from Signalfire is showing us some early visions of what might come to pass in the years ahead. The scope of the study is impressive: it uses data from 650 million professionals, and 80 million organizations. There are breakout statistics for smaller groups of companies and workers, but the study in general relies on a pretty good survey of market data. One of the most sobering parts of the report is the idea that there's a generational shift taking place, and that it largely has to do with decreases in entry-level opportunities for new workers. For somebody just graduating from college, entry-level work is the name of the game. They can smooth the path with an internship or some kind of freelance position, but essentially, new career professionals have always faced that challenge of needing a job to get experience, and needing experience to get the job. However, what the study suggests is that this struggle has just gotten leaner and meaner – with a rise of 5.8% in unemployment for new college grads, and similar other harbingers of doom for Gen Z as a labor force. Other cited statistics include increases in certain law school admissions, with report writers theorizing that young professionals often put off job searches by attending law school when markets are tight. New graduate hires, the report shows, are down 50% from pre-pandemic levels. There's also the suggestion that non-technical job roles keep shrinking, and demand for high-tech positions (filled by experienced people) keeps growing, where senior people may be hired to fill junior positions. There's the question of whether college educations are keeping up with the skill sets employers are looking for. Fundamentally, the question that this asks is: if AI can do all of the go-fering, what happens to the go-fer jobs that have springboarded careers for decades? The study also analyzed where jobs are being created in the tech world. What they found is in increases in regional hubs like Miami and San Diego, lower hiring rates in parts of Texas, and continue dominance in San Francisco and New York where over 65% of the software engineers are located. The report explains it in this way, which to me seemed a little obtuse: 'More companies are embracing hub-and-spoke models, and tailoring compensation philosophies to ensure they secure the right talent mix across diverse locations.' The move toward larger hiring hubs makes sense in co-locating the talent with the infrastructure, and growing the economy of major cities, while emptying American small towns that weren't doing very well anyway. Economists and even public planners would presumably find it pretty easy to imagine how these trends will exacerbate the hollowing out of secondary or tertiary communities, and the building of massive metropolitan areas around hub cities. In other parts of the study, there's more analysis of how this could affect both workers and companies. I listen to an explication of the study from Nathaniel Whittemore at AI Daily Brief, where he went over a lot of the cultural aspects in play. He noted study suggestions that there may be other reasons for lower entry-level hiring, like higher interest rates and different company budget realities. But he also cited cultural business decisions, for example, in consulting and other areas, where some companies may just demand more from workers as a result of higher AI productivity. Whittemore cited engineers working for Amazon, where some of them have said that their job roles start to seem more like working in an Amazon warehouse, with the kinds of tight quotas and productivity mandates that you would associate with the word 'sweatshop'. 'I think that we're experiencing is an example of how challenging transitional periods can be,' he said, unpacking all of the uncertainties around how productivity gains will be handled. 'If you are a regular listener to this show, you'll know that I am net bullish on how all of this shakes out, I think that AI is going to bring massive disruption to the way that we work. ... I think that the market absorbs a huge amount of talent that would have otherwise been absorbed into these big companies in new and interesting ways. But that doesn't mean that it's not going to be extraordinarily painful along the way.' While companies, he notes, could train people better, they may just raise output goals, and be less forgiving of deadlines. Whittemore quotes a Harvard professor predicting a 'speed-up for knowledge workers,' which would represent the more partisan approach by employers – and unfortunately for new workers, that's not without precedent. There's a need, Whittemore suggests, for leadership, to determine whether there's a 'dehumanizing' or 're-humanizing' of human workers in the AI age. For that more targeted content from the report, here's an example, where in a study of the top 15 tech companies from 2019 to 2024, we see that there's almost a night and day difference on the chart lines between those with two or less years of experience, and others with more. It's scary for people who lack those first few years of career experience. In conclusion, I wanted to just post the last section of the report verbatim, because I think it speaks for itself: 'What it means for the road ahead: - For new grads: The training wheels are gone. With fewer entry-level roles, the path forward will rely on bootcamps, open-source, freelancing, and creative projects. It's not enough to just master the latest AI tools; learn to fix their flaws—debugging messy, machine-generated code may be your superpower. - For employers: AI might reduce the short-term need for junior hires, but skipping them entirely risks breaking the long-term talent pipeline. The industry's future depends on equipping the next generation with skills that grow alongside the evolving technology landscape.' So basically, doing too much in this area can hurt both the company, and the workers. Will we be able to find a solution that works for everybody? Anyway, this is a lot to take in for new hires or potential career professionals who are just graduating and entering the workforce. As Whittemore concedes, we are going to have to figure this out, and things could get messy before we end up with a solution for how to integrate AI changes into this aspect of our lives.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
How Brexit helped Poland become a European superpower
For Natalia Muszynska, the daughter of a Polish supermarket worker in Scotland, the journey home began with an internet search. Despite studying business management at college in Aberdeen, she was finding it almost impossible to line up an internship. Then inspiration struck. 'I switched to a Polish advertising site, typed in 'internships', and thousands of options came up, including paid ones,' said Ms Muszynska, who moved to Britain with her mother shortly after Poland joined the EU in 2004, along with around a million other Poles seeking higher wages in the UK. Curious about whether life in Poland now had more to offer, she relocated to Warsaw, joining hundreds of thousands of Poles who have moved back to their home country as it emerges on the world stage as an economic juggernaut and Slavic superpower. After decades of suffering under communism, its economy is booming. It boasts a bigger army than Britain, France or Germany, and Donald Tusk, its centrist prime minister, is a former EU Council president who wields immense influence in Brussels. At the same time, a metro ticket costs as little as 60p, a pint of beer will set you back less than £3, and the overall cost of living remains low in European league tables. Britain – or perhaps, the decline of Britain, in the eyes of some Poles – has played a role in this success story. The number of Poles in the UK has fallen from a peak of around a million to 700,000 in the wake of Brexit, and Poland is reaping the reward. Ms Muszynska says she is a 'prime example of this'. Not long after returning home, she started her own property business and was living in a flat with underfloor heating that she could only dream of having in Aberdeen. 'There are so many opportunities here – it's the fastest growing place in Europe,' she said. 'My mum moved to the UK because she couldn't find a job in Poland. I came back to Poland because I thought: this is the biggest opportunity ever.' This Sunday, Poles face a choice that will define their country's place in Europe as they head to the polls for presidential elections. Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw and Mr Tusk's preferred candidate, is in a neck-and-neck race with the hardline conservative Karol Nawrocki. Experts say membership of the European Union is by far the biggest contributor to the country's triumph, opening up free movement for Polish workers across the continent and full access to the EU's lucrative single market. Since joining the bloc in 2004, the country is yet to experience recession, excluding a blip at the height of the Covid pandemic, while GDP has risen by four per cent on average each year. This year alone, a 3.3 per cent increase in GDP is expected, compared to just one per cent in the UK. But with hundreds of thousands of young workers being lured back by the promise of a better life, Poland has also benefited from Britain's struggles. Aleks Szczerbiak, a Polish politics expert and professor at Sussex University, said the return of Poles could also be linked to a sense that 2004's mass exodus was doing more harm than good in the long run. 'Access to western labour markets was one of the reasons EU membership was, and still is, so popular,' he said. 'But that quickly went from being the greatest achievement to being seen as a kind of sign of failure. Poles felt that in order to earn a decent salary they had to go abroad, and work at a level way below their qualifications. 'You had Poles with PhDs serving coffee in Starbucks because it paid more in the UK than Poland, and so there has been an effort to get people back.' After two decades of EU free movement, the Polish government is posting adverts online urging citizens to return home: 'New Year's resolution to make: come back to Poland!' states one recent advert, which promises 'a flourishing economy, attractive salaries and a safe environment'. One of the main draws is Warsaw itself, a city of 1.8 million people where skyscrapers, tech start-ups and trendy cafes serving French toast have replaced the old, urban sprawl of Soviet buildings. Warsaw's most famous landmark used to be the Palace of Culture and Science, an imposing high-rise built in the Stalinist style in 1955. After the fall of Communism in 1989, its dedications to Stalin were scrubbed from the colonnade and lobby, while a new skyscraper – Varso Tower, the tallest in the EU – now rises above the city. Middle-class neighbourhoods are also springing up in Warsaw, offering a Slavic version of Notting Hill or Knightsbridge to successful Poles heeding the government's call to return home. In Zoliborz, northern Warsaw, gleaming white new-build apartment blocks have risen over flagstone courtyards and water fountains, with flat prices ranging from 600,000 to 1.9 million Polish zloty (£120,000-£375,000). BMWs fill many parking spaces. Robert, a construction firm owner and resident of Zoliborz, described the transition of Warsaw over the past two decades as 'shocking to witness'. 'Our parents had, let's say, a mid-range quality of life, but we are an extremely hard-working nation and we have earned what we have now,' he said. 'You can see that we're building a lot in Warsaw, and there is more to do.' Robert, 35, who did not wish to share his last name, added that when he started his construction firm a decade ago, he struggled to find workers – they had all moved to Britain and Germany. Now the reverse is the case – he is the one taking phone calls from Poles who have returned and are seeking work from him. 'And when the Germans visit, they are impressed by the phone signal,' he jokes, alluding to Berlin's outdated telecoms infrastructure. The famously fierce Polish work ethic still has its admirers in Britain, such as Daniel Kawczynski, the former Conservative MP, who viewed Brexit as an opportunity to deepen British-Polish relations. 'I remember going back to Poland in 1983, when martial law was lifted, to see my beloved grandfather,' said Mr Kawczynski, who was born in Warsaw and served as the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham from 2005 to 2024. 'At that time there was nothing in the shops, petrol was rationed and the Communist system was politically Orwellian and economically illiterate. Now Poland is set to overtake the United Kingdom as an economy, and it's down to the fundamental principle that Polish people are driven to work hard, as hard as they can, and put into the system.' Fierce Ukrainian ally No account of Poland's rise can overlook the moment when Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24 2022. Poland immediately opened its border to nine million refugees, and that was only the beginning of its support for Kyiv. When Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, told Western allies, 'I don't need a ride [out of Ukraine] – I need ammunition,' Poland was among the first to step forward. To date, Poland has provided 47 military support packages to Kyiv's forces, ranging from hundreds of T-72 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, to combat helicopters, artillery systems and vast amounts of ammunition. Whichever candidate is elected, Poland's role as a leading EU supporter of Ukraine is set to continue, due to widespread public support for arming Kyiv against Russian invaders. But the invasion also prompted massive rearmament of Poland's own armed forces: Poland's annual defence spending stood at 2.7 per cent of GDP in 2022 but is set to reach 4.7 per cent later this year – tantalisingly close to the new 5 per cent Nato target, which prior to Putin's invasion was considered a mere pipe dream. That rapid increase of military spending began under the Right-wing Law and Justice leader Mateusz Morawiecki, and continues under Mr Tusk, who came to power in 2023, in a country where there is near-universal consensus for giving significant military support to Ukraine. That sentiment is largely fuelled by geography, with Poland sharing a long border with both Ukraine and close Putin ally Belarus, but also by a historical revulsion towards Russian authoritarianism. Mr Tusk himself is a former president of the European Council of EU national leaders in Brussels. His critics in Poland, who tend to be Eurosceptic, though not to the extent of wanting to see a 'Polexit,' say this makes him too close to the Brussels elite – perhaps so close that he no longer represents Polish national interests. Declining birth rates But Mr Tusk's supporters argue that this deep knowledge of the EU and its institutions makes him the right leader to hold maximum leverage over the bloc, particularly when it comes to contentious issues such as mass migration or farming subsidies. Not everyone in Poland feels comfortable with its nascent superpower status, as reflected in an Economist editorial this week hailing its 'remarkable rise'. One Polish industry source, who did not wish to be named, said that behind the effusive headlines about his country there lurked deep concerns about the economic future. They cited as one example the significant decline in birth rates since 2017, from 1.48 to 1.26, as a sign that there could be a missing generation of workers in two decades. There are also concerns on the Eurosceptic wings of Polish politics that too much sovereignty has been ceded to Brussels. Poland – which since joining the EU in 2004 has received €246 billion (£200 billion) from the EU budget – is set to become a net contributor to that budget in future, rather than a recipient. That could create a dynamic where Poles feel they are putting far more value into the EU than what they receive in return, similar to sentiment in pre-Brexit Britain and in Germany, the biggest net contributor to EU funds. 'You can't really say everything is perfect when nearly half the country is set to vote for Karol Nawrocki', the Polish industry source said, referring to the Right-wing, Trump-esque candidate in Sunday's presidential elections. Opinion polls suggest the result will be extremely close, with 46 per cent backing Mr Nawrocki against 47 per cent for Mr Trzaskowski. Beyond economics, politics and the military, Poland is also gaining significant soft power in the arts world. The fantasy role-playing video game The Witcher 3, one of the most critically acclaimed and lucrative worldwide, was developed in Warsaw. The fame of CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher 3, is so widespread that fans travel from across the world to pay homage at its offices, tucked away on an industrial estate in the north-east of the capital. Inside, a statue of The Witcher's silver-haired protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, greets visitors who have flown in to experience the country that produced their favourite video game. 'It's amazing to see fans from around the world come to Warsaw just to visit our studio,' said Jan Rosner, its vice-president of business development. 'The fact that our office has become a destination for them is a testament to the passion our community brings. It truly means the world to us.' The $5.1 billion studio is now working on a sequel, The Witcher 4, already one of the most hotly anticipated game releases worldwide. And the games have also raised the profile of Polish culture, as they are based on local folklore and the fantasy novels of Andrzej Sapkowski, the Polish author, who was virtually unknown outside of the country prior to the release of The Witcher 3. Now he is widely considered as the Slavic successor to JRR Tolkien. As a result, the studio is among the most striking examples of Poland's rise on the world stage. Two decades ago, when Poland joined the EU, some young Britons would have moaned that the plumbers of Poland were taking their jobs. Now they are getting on planes to Warsaw so they can pose for selfies with a statue of a Polish monster-slayer.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Fury as Chinese bank offers to help rich clients' kids gain top internships
A Chinese bank has triggered outrage by offering to help its rich customers secure prestigious internships for their children, prompting a heated debate about privilege and inequality on social media. Industrial Bank, a regional lender from Fujian province, said in a now-deleted post on the social platform WeChat that it could arrange for its clients' offspring to gain work experience at top firms including Google and JP Morgan, according to screenshots circulating online. To qualify for the scheme, households would need to deposit large new sums with the bank: 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) for non-private banking customers and 5 million yuan for private banking clients, the post added. The scheme quickly went viral and triggered intense backlash on Chinese social media. The reaction has been particularly fierce given China's sky-high youth unemployment rate and a spate of recent scandals involving nepotism in the job market On Tuesday, Industrial Bank announced it had paused the offer and apologised for any 'misunderstandings caused by incomplete descriptions', according to the state-run news outlet Securities Times. In the statement, the company claimed it had not directly arranged internships for its customers' children, but had merely intended to refer them to external recruitment consultants, Securities Times reported.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Wall Street Interns Are Safe From AI. Here's Why.
Summer is here. And for a select cohort of college students, that means swapping lecture halls for trading floors and seminar rooms for Wall Street office suites. In the next few weeks, thousands will begin internships at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and other major financial institutions. What awaits them could define their careers. Getting there, however, has become harder than getting into the top universities where many of them study. Goldman Sachs begins its process more than a year out, interviewing candidates as early as the end of their sophomore year. The bank's 2024 intern class saw over 315,000 applications for 2,700 spots – an acceptance rate of 0.9%. JPMorgan revealed at its investor day last year that it had received 493,000 applications for about 4,000 positions. Mary Erdoes, head of the asset and wealth management division, called the volume 'mind-blowing,' noting it left the firm 'ripe with the ability to pick talent' from an enormous pool. Both banks now have acceptance rates lower than Harvard University's 3.6%.
Fast Company
4 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Why summer internships were so hard to find this year
Fast Company spoke with four students about the challenging internship application process—and what they plan to do this summer. [Photo: Panumas/Adobe Stock] BY Listen to this Article More info 0:00 / 10:16 'Another day, another internship,' says Paige Lorbiecki, a junior at the University of Florida, straight to camera. This year, Lorbiecki documented the process of applying to summer marketing internships on TikTok. In this video from May 4, she completed another six applications, but Loribiecki says she applied to more than 100 internships in total. It took her until late May, nearly a month after her classes ended, to finally secure a content creation and social media opportunity at an interior design business. This rigamarole of applying to internships and post-grad fellowships has never been fun, but this year, many are finding the cycle exceptionally tough. College students and recent graduates all over the country are feeling the effects of an oversaturated job market and a lack of entry-level jobs. The student job platform Handshake found that internship postings on their site declined by more than 15% from 2023 to 2025. Between the Trump administration's cuts to university funding, and economic uncertainty over tariffs, many companies are tightening their hiring budgets, limiting the number of summer internships they offer, and raising the amount of experience they require. Fast Company spoke to four different college students, including Loribiecki, about their plans this summer and their insights about the agonizing application season. Their accounts have been edited for space and clarity. Subscribe to the Daily Company's trending stories delivered to you every day SIGN UP Kelly Rappaport, senior at Northwestern University: 'I've not gotten a single interview.' I fully committed to searching in November or December, and started applying here and there for media and communications industries. Depending on how busy I am each week, I'm putting out anywhere from five to 25 applications each week. I think at this point, we are all aware that the 'Easy Apply' button is as good as throwing your résumé in the garbage. But believe it or not, I've not gotten a single interview. Ballpark range, I've probably applied to 300 to 500 different jobs. That's actual, sincere job applications. I'm very exhausted, jaded, and kind of disappointed. I'm a first-generation college student, and I can't even get a first round interview or a call back or anything on all these jobs. I have a ton of things on my résumé. I've had recruiters tell me I'm over-qualified and then still not get put to the next round interview. And it's so exhausting when sometimes I see peers that, because they have connections, they are getting jobs. My dad's like a blue-collar trades worker, and my mom's worked in public schools. I certainly don't have connections outside of the Chicago area where I'm from, and so it feels like I'm kind of limited by who I know. For my Sophomore year [summer internship], I don't think I got an offer until May, and so I was kind of expecting another summer of no internships. I was very stressed, because you look at your peers and you think you need to be in one place or another. Especially as a first-generation college student, my peers are kind of my benchmark. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be, because I don't have that model of where my parents were at. I really think unpaid internships are rather sinister. There is no other context in this country in which unpaid labor is an acceptable thing. I think there's definitely inherent privilege [at a university like Northwestern]. There's the financial security to take on an unpaid internship or an internship in an expensive location; there is the privilege of connection; the privilege of having parents who know where [the benchmark is]; who know how colleges work and how networking is. There's definitely a major disconnect there. Skyley Mitchell, senior at Stanford University: 'Slowly but surely, I started losing passion.' I study international relations, and truthfully, I didn't really have a clear, guided career path. I really wanted to focus on social impact, something along those lines, where I can help the community that I find important. So that's one of the biggest things, and that is terrible not only for the job market, but also for payment, as well. I'm also a low-income student. It puts a lot of pressure on me to provide for [my family]. So that was one of the biggest determinants for what job I want to do, and if I should follow passion or follow money. But the biggest thing about this job market is that it feels like you can do neither. People often say your first job out of college may not matter as much to your future career. But it really felt like it did, so it was really hard. And I hate writing cover letters. They're one of the worst aspects [of] applications ever, because I basically have to be fun, quirky, and relatable. It's like a dating app, but for job applications. You want to be fun and interesting. I don't know how to be fun and interesting to a job that doesn't care about me yet. I read this article before that was talking about how Gen Z is the most rejected generation ever, basically talking about how we're getting rejected on dating apps; we're getting rejected on job apps; we're getting rejected on school applications. We're just getting rejected in various aspects in life, which makes us a little jaded. And I think I really felt that for my job applications. Slowly but surely, I started losing passion about what I wanted to do. I just started doing Quick Apply on Indeed in order to get my applications out there. Coming back with rejections, it just really slowly but surely started hurting less—but not in a good way. Fortunately I have a job now, which I'm very grateful for. But the main reason why I think I was able to get it is because of my school. Stanford is very prestigious [and] has a lot of great opportunities for its students. If you get connected, there's a lot of opportunities. Paige Lorbiecki, junior at University of Florida: 'It's like a pit in your gut.' At [the University of Florida], I jumped at every opportunity. I feel like my résumé is stacked [and] my portfolio is very diverse, but all these internships are looking for something specific that I just don't have. I started applying way back in October. Some internships are super early, so I definitely started applying back then, and over winter break, I did a lot, and I still wasn't hearing anything back. It's hard because a lot of my finance friends had an internship set a year ago. So I just felt really behind. But marketing specifically is a little bit of a pushed back timeline; it's a little bit later in the year. I ended up doing close to 80 applications. Didn't really hear anything back. I had three rounds of interviews for different companies. Made it to the final interview of all of those, and ended up not getting it. I would even email them back and say 'Oh, I would love feedback so I can improve myself,' and they would just ghost me. I don't know how to improve or what I'm missing that these companies are looking for. Starting in February is when the rejections started to roll in. I have applied to a little over 100 now, and I've heard back from about 30% of them, so I'm still waiting to hear back from 70%. Half of those, I don't think I'm ever going to hear back from. It just is what it is. A lot of things are automated nowadays. If my résumé doesn't match your job description, it just automatically rejects me. I'm a little bit confused why I'm not getting those emails, and now I'm waiting around to know if these opportunities are still open for me, or is it just, like a lost cause? Should I move on? So, it's weird. I'm just assuming the worst, that it's not going to happen. Why can I not describe my feelings right now? It's like a pit in your gut. It's almost like annoyance and a little bit of anger. I feel like I hold myself to a really high standard. So when I don't achieve those goals, I'm like, 'Okay, what can I do to fix that? I've got to figure my shit out.' And it's just really frustrating that it's come to this point. I'm not going to lie, even just a nice email back would be nice enough for me. I don't care if you don't want me, but just let me know. Lauren Levinson, junior at Northwestern University: 'I've been trying to compensate.' I definitely started my internship search way later than you're supposed to. Most people start in the fall, but I was abroad, so I didn't want to do that. My first application I submitted was in January. And I mean, honestly, I just didn't submit enough applications. Most of the jobs I applied to were research jobs at Northwestern and I actually don't think the [federal] funding cuts impacted it. I don't really know what the issue was, but I didn't get any of them. One just wasn't taking more assistance. I got feedback on one of my applications, which was really nice. They said I was really qualified, but they wanted more details. They were 'You were super qualified. We thought you would have made a really great candidate. But we wanted you to say in your cover letter more about how it would have impacted your career in the future.' So [I] didn't get that one, kind of a bummer, but I'm not surprised, because it included a paid trip to Columbia. I also applied to the summer internship grant program at Northwestern to get funding for unpaid internships. Didn't get that. That one I definitely think got funding cuts, and does kind of throw a wrench into my plans. But now I'm currently doing an internship at … a nonprofit health center for Spanish-speaking immigrants. I got that internship through Northwestern, but I really love them, and I've loved my time there. I'm probably going to stay on with [them] and do a summer there, but probably similar hours to what I'm doing now, part-time, so I can keep working my restaurant job and babysitting and actually making money. Right now, they give me a stipend, so I'm hoping to continue with that system, but I'm also nervous because they don't normally pay their summer interns. I've been trying to compensate. I'm applying to fellowships for next year for 2026-2027. I have to study for the LSAT. Even if I didn't get an internship, I would still have plenty to do. The final deadline for Fast Company's Brands That Matter Awards is Friday, May 30, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Arden is an editorial intern at Fast Company, where she covers Gen Z, innovation, and technology. She is currently a junior at Northwestern University studying Journalism, Sociology, and Gender Studies. More
