It’s time to address the looming crisis in entry-level work.

While AI has not yet caused widespread unemployment, a concerning trend is emerging in entry-level jobs. Studies reveal a significant decline in employment for young workers (22-25) in AI-exposed occupations, suggesting AI is replacing the junior tasks essential for career entry. This trend is not observed in more experienced workers or entry-level jobs with low AI exposure, indicating a targeted impact on early-career roles susceptible to generative AI applications.

This shift is particularly alarming as entry-level positions have traditionally served as a crucial training ground, fostering practical skills in areas like software development, customer service, and data analysis. If AI automates these foundational tasks, it may enhance short-term efficiency for businesses but could ultimately diminish society's long-term capabilities by hindering the development of future talent.

Beyond direct AI impact, the broader labor market for recent graduates is also weakening, with rising unemployment and underemployment rates. While AI may not be the sole cause, it likely exacerbates an already challenging transition from education to employment. This difficult environment contributes to significant personal distress among recent graduates, who often face extended job searches, anxiety, and financial precarity.

The traditional advice to "learn to code" is no longer sufficient. AI now excels at the routine coding tasks that formed the core of such programs. Instead, the focus must shift to skills like supervising AI systems, understanding their outputs, and combining AI tools with human expertise.

Educational institutions, governments, and businesses must collaborate to address this crisis. Universities and colleges should integrate AI literacy, data literacy, and prompt-based workflow skills into curricula. Governments should incentivize businesses to hire and train early-career workers, while businesses must recognize the importance of developing an AI-fluent workforce beginning at the entry-level. Students, in turn, need to embrace AI fluency and learn to apply it across diverse fields. This proactive approach will prepare young people for an AI-augmented workforce by fostering judgment in real-world settings through apprenticeships and employer-linked projects.