10 ms·

AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects

79 points by lucaspauker 1y ago

neom 1y ago
The paper the article is based on: https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Canaries_BrynjolfssonChandarChen.pdf https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/...
commandlinefan 1y ago
Old Americans, too.
francisofascii 1y ago
> While we find employment declines for young workers in occupations where AI primarily automates work, we find employment growth in occupations in which AI use is most augmentative. Maybe there is some hope if they can't fully automate the job with AI.
franktankbank 1y ago
It's hammer time!
- undebuggable 1y ago
  > hammer time Internet gave me a more wicked explanation of this phrase, thus the internet is superior to AI.
  - logicchains 1y ago
    As in AI can't touch this, this being the internet?
kelseyfrog 1y ago
AI is wrecking young Americans' job prospect... making this the strongest job market they'll ever see.
- hyperpape 1y ago
  I don't think AI is the cause, but it was a hell of a lot stronger 3-4 years ago.
throw2432234 1y ago
[flagged]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ecb_penguin 1y ago
This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates. When other tech companies realize GenAI will never produce what they want, there will be a rush to re-hire developers. Top talent all started as junior talent. Grab that pool so nobody else will have it.
- the_arun 1y ago
  On a related note, we had another popular thread in HN earlier this week - (AWS CEO says using AI to replace junior staff is 'Dumbest thing I've ever heard' ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44972151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44972151 which is quite the opposite of this original post.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gcanyon 1y ago
  > GenAI will never produce what they want What's your argument supporting this? Ten years ago GenAI couldn't produce two coherent sentences. We've come a long way, what makes you think it won't go further?
  - ecb_penguin 1y ago
    > Ten years ago GenAI couldn't produce two coherent sentences. Depending on the question, it still can't. It's kinda crazy how you view repeating probabilistic outputs as "coherent sentences". > We've come a long way, what makes you think it won't go further? Where did I say it won't go further? I said it will never produce what they want. Those are different things. Regardless, you're focused on the wrong point.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  > This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates. First, they'd have to identify them, which the interview process at most companies is terrible at.
xpe 1y ago
Who knows of a good written critique of this paper written by experts in causal analysis?
- an0malous 1y ago
  Just ask GPT 5, Sam Altman said it has PhD level intelligence
- ch4s3 1y ago
  I'm only half way through the paper but it looks like from their numbers junior level software engineering employment has returned to 2021 levels and is declining towards perhaps 2019 levels. I can't help but wonder if they have made a mistake in controlling for the hiring boom around the pandemic shift to eCommerce. It looks like they tried to eliminate factors like that, but I'm not deep enough into the study yet.
metalman 1y ago
AI has also introduced an extra cost for the self employed, in the form of ai fee charged for AI optimisation "GAIO",on top of seo fee's on top of hosting and development costs, which can easily be more than 5% of gross for a small business starting out.
xpe 1y ago
How many people are just assuming the study is true or false based on what you already think is the case? Better instead to use our collective brain power for something more productive. Such as digging into the various possible causal factors and understanding if the paper properly addresses and disentangles them.
- mlinhares 1y ago
  Maybe, just maybe, the reason is that the economy is moving towards the dumps and nobody is hiring or firing, because they know the future is gloomy. But it makes it much nicer to say its AI that's stealing jobs to create even more hype.
  - therobots927 1y ago
    This is the obvious answer to anyone paying attention
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    Perhaps you have it backwards, and the future is gloomy because AI is wrecking young american's job prospects. Is it possible to stay better than AI? Maybe for some people. Not for the average person. The results of that are one of the largest contributors to the gloomy future (among other things).
    - rchaud 1y ago
      The future is gloomy because the American economy has largely been in a state of "jobless recovery" since thr great recession. Stock prices are up thanks to corporate tax cuts, ZIRP, AI hype etc, but discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure This is false. Real disposable personal income is higher today than any time before March 2020 [1]. Covid stimulus first dramatically raised (March '20 to '21) and then lowered (March '21 to June '22) that figure. But we hit a local maximum in April '25, after which real DPI started falling, though nevertheless only to the level we saw in spring '21 and early '25, and no point before. (Real median household figures are more laggy. But they show the same trend [2]. On a national level, these figures are up.) [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
mikert89 1y ago
all the tech companies are filled to the brim with h1b visa holders working around the clock for average pay. this has nothing to do with ai, and everything to do with importing workers that are desperate to be here, and so work like dogs. fresh college grads are competing with foreign visa holders that have years of experience
- ch4s3 1y ago
  They aren't just looking at tech jobs in the study but all job in the data set that they've coded as being AI exposed. > We use two different approaches for measuring occupational exposure to AI. The first uses exposure measures from Eloundou et al. (2024). Eloundou et al. (2024) estimate AI exposure by ONET task using ChatGPT validated with human labeling. They then construct occupational exposure measures by aggregating the task data to the 2018 SOC code level. We focus on the GPT-4 based β exposure measures from their paper. >The second primary approach we take uses data on generative AI usage from the Anthropic Economic Index (Handa et al., 2025). This index reports the estimated share of queries pertaining to each ONET task based on a sample of several million conversations with Claude, Anthropic’s generative AI model. It then aggregates the data to the occupational level based on these task shares. One feature of the Anthropic Economic Index is that for each task it also reports estimates of the share of queries pertaining to that task that are “automative,” “augmentative,” or none of the above. We use this information as an estimate of whether usage of AI for an occupation is primarily complementary or substitutable with labor.14
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > fresh college grads are competing with foreign visa holders that have years of experience Are there more H1Bs per recent college graduate today than previously?
- cpursley 1y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted (maybe by h1bs). Big companies abusing h1b has been all over the news. Heck a Walmart manager was just arrested for taking kickbacks related to h1bs (from the country of his origin)... https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-1b-scandal-rumors-claim-vp-got-kickbacks-1200-terminated-spark-fears-among-indians-101755985714636.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-...
bobosha 1y ago
IMO AI is going eat most jobs - including the experienced ones - it's just a matter of time. There is no sugar coating this unfortunately.
- Insanity 1y ago
  Given a long enough timeframe, I think you're right. But I don't think that's a 'near future' state, but probably a 'in a few decades' state. More generally, I believe that eventually we'll reach a 'post-work society' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-work_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-work_society). And that'll be interesting for humanity, as we derive at least some identity from the work we're doing.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    Interesting indeed. Depending on the country you're in, "post work" will mean your value to the current violent, ruling regime is 0 or negative, with predictable consequences. Luckily for the regime, the killbots are already here, AI-powered, and under their control.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    Man, I wish I had your optimism. I can see us entering "post-work", but that's only because those who own the means of production no longer require us, and our resulting crises will be much lower on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.
    - generic92034 1y ago
      Production for whom, though? At least any growth paradigm immediately dies without a mass of consumers. Billionaires can only consume so much.
      - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        Well, at the moment both "growth" and "wealth" have been removed from a lot humanity, having been abstracted into a market that most people can barely, if at all, participate in, and that has nearly entirely moved away from "you're worth $x because you make x widgets". I can't image that will disappear.
ofjcihen 1y ago
The articles title combined with the much more middle of the road sub title and then a final request that you give them money to figure out what the fuck is going on is all you need to know about the journalists integrity.
ch4s3 1y ago
I'd love for someone who has read more of the background studies to comment on how Occupational AI Exposure is being measured. The methodology sounds reasonable but I don't know anything about how they're actually labeling tasks and how reliable that process is.
babl-yc 1y ago
One crazy stat -- In 2024, 21% of all bachelor's degrees awarded were Computer Science from University of Maryland College Park. It was 3% in 2011. I don't agree with the article that AI is wrecking job prospects. I see it is as companies are just now trending towards running leaner vs hiring every good engineer available during ZIRP. Nonetheless, it's gotta be tough out there for new grads. https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/DataJournal/Degrees/?report=Degrees-by-Program-Area-and-Degree-Type https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/DataJournal/Degrees/?report=Degree...
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > companies are just now trending towards running leaner vs hiring every good engineer available during ZIRP This sounds more like overproduction of entry-level computer scientists than anything AI or hiring managers are up to.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    I suspect it is also universities realizing that (pure) computer science has low demand so they shifted their program to either focus it on more industry-geared education, or dumb-dumbed the grade-inflation (data backs this up) enough the masses had the confidence to do it.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > dumb-dumbed the grade-inflation (data backs this up) Source for CS graduates?
      - mothballed 1y ago
        Here's one survey, but the literature is plastered with it https://www.gradeinflation.com/ https://www.gradeinflation.com/
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
BurningFrog 1y ago
This will be very interesting. So far in the Industrial Revolution, automating away jobs has been how we've getting richer and richer for centuries. If AI automates away half of all jobs, and this holds we will - after an adjustment period - double GDP and collectively be twice as wealthy! If that actually happens, it solves many currently "unsolvable" societal problems. I'm pretty sure that it does, but the adjustment period might be longer than we'd wish.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > If AI automates away half of all jobs This is a big if!
  - thmsths 1y ago
    I agree to a degree. I don't see the current crop of AIs doing that. However, this might happen eventually (when is basically impossible to predict) and there is some benefit in pondering what to do if it happens, before it actually happens.
  - BurningFrog 1y ago
    Agreed. I picked that number for the simple math.
- cpursley 1y ago
  Farming mechanization and the loom automated so much that 97% of society used to be agrarian and now it's the opposite (only 3% are farmers in developed societies), and we are much better off despite the growing pains they had. Though, it does make me nervous how fast AI automation is hitting.
  - rwyinuse 1y ago
    That's because most of the surplus agrarian workers found new jobs from factories and service sector in cities. Industrial society needed more people to work the factory lines, transport stuff, feed those city living workers and so on. I'm not sure this latest wave of automation will be similar, because it's not obvious what new occupations increasing AI use could create, at least not in large enough amounts.
DataDaemon 1y ago
1. High interests rate. 2. Too many bootcamps. We can close this topic.
- cpursley 1y ago
  Doubt the bootcamps made a measurable difference in the tech hiring market.
- Temporary_31337 1y ago
  computer job market is a huge misallocation of skills and resources, so no it's not that simple. Given how much tech debt/backlog there is, there should be enough work for everyone, just paid less. The fact that it isn't so just shows that there are bottlenecks elsewhere - HR, companies stuck in office only mode (so there's a high floor on salaries). Currently all I see is a mix of very highly paid do it all types with rather lowly paid outsourced talent but no sensible middle and of course no way to realistically learn on the job - the bar to get in is very high.
- delfinom 1y ago
  Interest rates really aren't that high. Lowering them 3% just means you get a few more years before shit goes tits up. Fundamentals are the problem, if there's no new avenues for economic growth, then there is no way to pay down the debt.
random9749832 1y ago
Job prospects down, immigration up. Someone make it make sense.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > immigration up "In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - codyklimdev 1y ago
    So now it's only 52 million? Thank goodness, problem solved!
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > now it's only 52 million? You're moving the goalposts. There is no paradox--the job market is down and so is immigration. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
      - codyklimdev 1y ago
        Doesn't change the fact that H1-Bers have turned the US IT job market harmfully hyper-competitive for US citizens.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
threecheese 1y ago
How much of the glut of new compsci/sweng young people is the result of real market demands, vs social media personalities creating the appearance of a demand? My observation is that, between 2019 and 2023, there were many creators shilling this, and probably quite good livings made off views and clicks. Could social media have amplified this, “fakely”?
Ekaros 1y ago
I have been thinking. Maybe there is just less demand for software? Or at least less willingness to invest in it. Thus less jobs. And reasons for this is varied. Whole AI is just coincidental.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
"While anecdotal evidence has emerged showing AI's effects on certain professions, such as software coding, there has been little harder evidence that the technology was significantly weighing on the labor market." Anecdotal evidence accompanied by repeated wild speculation about _other_ occupations, including ones with educational and certification requirements "The Stanford economists first looked at areas where AI can automate many of the tasks workers perform, and therefore potentially replace them. Those include jobs such as software developers, receptionists, translators and customer service representatives." Generally, none of those require professional certification or even a college degree; they are "unregulated" https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Guidance-on-Becoming-a-Professional-Translator.pdf https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Guidance-on... "Head counts among customer service representatives a category that, unlike software development, generally doesn't require a college education followed a similar pattern." The author assumes that software development requires a college degree NB. Even if it is common to have one this is not the same as a legal requirement https://www.nocsdegree.com/blog/companies-that-hire-programmers-without-degrees/ https://www.nocsdegree.com/blog/companies-that-hire-programm...
CHB0403085482 1y ago
Cos dictionary substitution is good enough /s https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-my-job-translators https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-my-job-transla...
aspenmayer 1y ago
https://archive.is/aPRzy https://archive.is/aPRzy

79 points by lucaspauker 1y ago

neom 1y ago

The paper the article is based on: https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Canaries_BrynjolfssonChandarChen.pdf https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/...

commandlinefan 1y ago

Old Americans, too.

francisofascii 1y ago

> While we find employment declines for young workers in occupations where AI primarily automates work, we find employment growth in occupations in which AI use is most augmentative. Maybe there is some hope if they can't fully automate the job with AI.

franktankbank 1y ago

It's hammer time!

undebuggable 1y ago
> hammer time Internet gave me a more wicked explanation of this phrase, thus the internet is superior to AI.
- logicchains 1y ago
  As in AI can't touch this, this being the internet?

kelseyfrog 1y ago

AI is wrecking young Americans' job prospect... making this the strongest job market they'll ever see.

hyperpape 1y ago
I don't think AI is the cause, but it was a hell of a lot stronger 3-4 years ago.

throw2432234 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ecb_penguin 1y ago

This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates. When other tech companies realize GenAI will never produce what they want, there will be a rush to re-hire developers. Top talent all started as junior talent. Grab that pool so nobody else will have it.

the_arun 1y ago
On a related note, we had another popular thread in HN earlier this week - (AWS CEO says using AI to replace junior staff is 'Dumbest thing I've ever heard' ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44972151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44972151 which is quite the opposite of this original post.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
gcanyon 1y ago
> GenAI will never produce what they want What's your argument supporting this? Ten years ago GenAI couldn't produce two coherent sentences. We've come a long way, what makes you think it won't go further?
- ecb_penguin 1y ago
  > Ten years ago GenAI couldn't produce two coherent sentences. Depending on the question, it still can't. It's kinda crazy how you view repeating probabilistic outputs as "coherent sentences". > We've come a long way, what makes you think it won't go further? Where did I say it won't go further? I said it will never produce what they want. Those are different things. Regardless, you're focused on the wrong point.
giancarlostoro 1y ago
> This could be the next iteration of stealing talent to prevent others from owning the market. An actually intelligent investor could dominate by bucking the trend and hire lots of smart, eager junior candidates. First, they'd have to identify them, which the interview process at most companies is terrible at.

xpe 1y ago

Who knows of a good written critique of this paper written by experts in causal analysis?

an0malous 1y ago
Just ask GPT 5, Sam Altman said it has PhD level intelligence
ch4s3 1y ago
I'm only half way through the paper but it looks like from their numbers junior level software engineering employment has returned to 2021 levels and is declining towards perhaps 2019 levels. I can't help but wonder if they have made a mistake in controlling for the hiring boom around the pandemic shift to eCommerce. It looks like they tried to eliminate factors like that, but I'm not deep enough into the study yet.

metalman 1y ago

AI has also introduced an extra cost for the self employed, in the form of ai fee charged for AI optimisation "GAIO",on top of seo fee's on top of hosting and development costs, which can easily be more than 5% of gross for a small business starting out.

xpe 1y ago

How many people are just assuming the study is true or false based on what you already think is the case? Better instead to use our collective brain power for something more productive. Such as digging into the various possible causal factors and understanding if the paper properly addresses and disentangles them.

mlinhares 1y ago
Maybe, just maybe, the reason is that the economy is moving towards the dumps and nobody is hiring or firing, because they know the future is gloomy. But it makes it much nicer to say its AI that's stealing jobs to create even more hype.
- therobots927 1y ago
  This is the obvious answer to anyone paying attention
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  Perhaps you have it backwards, and the future is gloomy because AI is wrecking young american's job prospects. Is it possible to stay better than AI? Maybe for some people. Not for the average person. The results of that are one of the largest contributors to the gloomy future (among other things).
  - rchaud 1y ago
    The future is gloomy because the American economy has largely been in a state of "jobless recovery" since thr great recession. Stock prices are up thanks to corporate tax cuts, ZIRP, AI hype etc, but discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > discretionary income is either stagnant in many sectors or are being chipped away from every angle: rent, healthcare, transport, childcare or leisure This is false. Real disposable personal income is higher today than any time before March 2020 [1]. Covid stimulus first dramatically raised (March '20 to '21) and then lowered (March '21 to June '22) that figure. But we hit a local maximum in April '25, after which real DPI started falling, though nevertheless only to the level we saw in spring '21 and early '25, and no point before. (Real median household figures are more laggy. But they show the same trend [2]. On a national level, these figures are up.) [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

mikert89 1y ago

all the tech companies are filled to the brim with h1b visa holders working around the clock for average pay. this has nothing to do with ai, and everything to do with importing workers that are desperate to be here, and so work like dogs. fresh college grads are competing with foreign visa holders that have years of experience

ch4s3 1y ago
They aren't just looking at tech jobs in the study but all job in the data set that they've coded as being AI exposed. > We use two different approaches for measuring occupational exposure to AI. The first uses exposure measures from Eloundou et al. (2024). Eloundou et al. (2024) estimate AI exposure by ONET task using ChatGPT validated with human labeling. They then construct occupational exposure measures by aggregating the task data to the 2018 SOC code level. We focus on the GPT-4 based β exposure measures from their paper. >The second primary approach we take uses data on generative AI usage from the Anthropic Economic Index (Handa et al., 2025). This index reports the estimated share of queries pertaining to each ONET task based on a sample of several million conversations with Claude, Anthropic’s generative AI model. It then aggregates the data to the occupational level based on these task shares. One feature of the Anthropic Economic Index is that for each task it also reports estimates of the share of queries pertaining to that task that are “automative,” “augmentative,” or none of the above. We use this information as an estimate of whether usage of AI for an occupation is primarily complementary or substitutable with labor.14
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> fresh college grads are competing with foreign visa holders that have years of experience Are there more H1Bs per recent college graduate today than previously?
cpursley 1y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted (maybe by h1bs). Big companies abusing h1b has been all over the news. Heck a Walmart manager was just arrested for taking kickbacks related to h1bs (from the country of his origin)... https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-1b-scandal-rumors-claim-vp-got-kickbacks-1200-terminated-spark-fears-among-indians-101755985714636.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-...

bobosha 1y ago

IMO AI is going eat most jobs - including the experienced ones - it's just a matter of time. There is no sugar coating this unfortunately.

Insanity 1y ago
Given a long enough timeframe, I think you're right. But I don't think that's a 'near future' state, but probably a 'in a few decades' state. More generally, I believe that eventually we'll reach a 'post-work society' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-work_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-work_society). And that'll be interesting for humanity, as we derive at least some identity from the work we're doing.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  Interesting indeed. Depending on the country you're in, "post work" will mean your value to the current violent, ruling regime is 0 or negative, with predictable consequences. Luckily for the regime, the killbots are already here, AI-powered, and under their control.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  Man, I wish I had your optimism. I can see us entering "post-work", but that's only because those who own the means of production no longer require us, and our resulting crises will be much lower on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.
  - generic92034 1y ago
    Production for whom, though? At least any growth paradigm immediately dies without a mass of consumers. Billionaires can only consume so much.
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      Well, at the moment both "growth" and "wealth" have been removed from a lot humanity, having been abstracted into a market that most people can barely, if at all, participate in, and that has nearly entirely moved away from "you're worth $x because you make x widgets". I can't image that will disappear.

ofjcihen 1y ago

The articles title combined with the much more middle of the road sub title and then a final request that you give them money to figure out what the fuck is going on is all you need to know about the journalists integrity.

ch4s3 1y ago

I'd love for someone who has read more of the background studies to comment on how Occupational AI Exposure is being measured. The methodology sounds reasonable but I don't know anything about how they're actually labeling tasks and how reliable that process is.

babl-yc 1y ago

One crazy stat -- In 2024, 21% of all bachelor's degrees awarded were Computer Science from University of Maryland College Park. It was 3% in 2011. I don't agree with the article that AI is wrecking job prospects. I see it is as companies are just now trending towards running leaner vs hiring every good engineer available during ZIRP. Nonetheless, it's gotta be tough out there for new grads. https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/DataJournal/Degrees/?report=Degrees-by-Program-Area-and-Degree-Type https://www.usmd.edu/IRIS/DataJournal/Degrees/?report=Degree...

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> companies are just now trending towards running leaner vs hiring every good engineer available during ZIRP This sounds more like overproduction of entry-level computer scientists than anything AI or hiring managers are up to.
- mothballed 1y ago
  I suspect it is also universities realizing that (pure) computer science has low demand so they shifted their program to either focus it on more industry-geared education, or dumb-dumbed the grade-inflation (data backs this up) enough the masses had the confidence to do it.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > dumb-dumbed the grade-inflation (data backs this up) Source for CS graduates?
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Here's one survey, but the literature is plastered with it https://www.gradeinflation.com/ https://www.gradeinflation.com/
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago

BurningFrog 1y ago

This will be very interesting. So far in the Industrial Revolution, automating away jobs has been how we've getting richer and richer for centuries. If AI automates away half of all jobs, and this holds we will - after an adjustment period - double GDP and collectively be twice as wealthy! If that actually happens, it solves many currently "unsolvable" societal problems. I'm pretty sure that it does, but the adjustment period might be longer than we'd wish.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> If AI automates away half of all jobs This is a big if!
- thmsths 1y ago
  I agree to a degree. I don't see the current crop of AIs doing that. However, this might happen eventually (when is basically impossible to predict) and there is some benefit in pondering what to do if it happens, before it actually happens.
- BurningFrog 1y ago
  Agreed. I picked that number for the simple math.
cpursley 1y ago
Farming mechanization and the loom automated so much that 97% of society used to be agrarian and now it's the opposite (only 3% are farmers in developed societies), and we are much better off despite the growing pains they had. Though, it does make me nervous how fast AI automation is hitting.
- rwyinuse 1y ago
  That's because most of the surplus agrarian workers found new jobs from factories and service sector in cities. Industrial society needed more people to work the factory lines, transport stuff, feed those city living workers and so on. I'm not sure this latest wave of automation will be similar, because it's not obvious what new occupations increasing AI use could create, at least not in large enough amounts.

DataDaemon 1y ago

1. High interests rate. 2. Too many bootcamps. We can close this topic.

cpursley 1y ago
Doubt the bootcamps made a measurable difference in the tech hiring market.
Temporary_31337 1y ago
computer job market is a huge misallocation of skills and resources, so no it's not that simple. Given how much tech debt/backlog there is, there should be enough work for everyone, just paid less. The fact that it isn't so just shows that there are bottlenecks elsewhere - HR, companies stuck in office only mode (so there's a high floor on salaries). Currently all I see is a mix of very highly paid do it all types with rather lowly paid outsourced talent but no sensible middle and of course no way to realistically learn on the job - the bar to get in is very high.
delfinom 1y ago
Interest rates really aren't that high. Lowering them 3% just means you get a few more years before shit goes tits up. Fundamentals are the problem, if there's no new avenues for economic growth, then there is no way to pay down the debt.

random9749832 1y ago

Job prospects down, immigration up. Someone make it make sense.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> immigration up "In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
- deleted 1y ago
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- codyklimdev 1y ago
  So now it's only 52 million? Thank goodness, problem solved!
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > now it's only 52 million? You're moving the goalposts. There is no paradox--the job market is down and so is immigration. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findings-about-us-immigrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
    - codyklimdev 1y ago
      Doesn't change the fact that H1-Bers have turned the US IT job market harmfully hyper-competitive for US citizens.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago

threecheese 1y ago

How much of the glut of new compsci/sweng young people is the result of real market demands, vs social media personalities creating the appearance of a demand? My observation is that, between 2019 and 2023, there were many creators shilling this, and probably quite good livings made off views and clicks. Could social media have amplified this, “fakely”?

Ekaros 1y ago

I have been thinking. Maybe there is just less demand for software? Or at least less willingness to invest in it. Thus less jobs. And reasons for this is varied. Whole AI is just coincidental.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

"While anecdotal evidence has emerged showing AI's effects on certain professions, such as software coding, there has been little harder evidence that the technology was significantly weighing on the labor market." Anecdotal evidence accompanied by repeated wild speculation about _other_ occupations, including ones with educational and certification requirements "The Stanford economists first looked at areas where AI can automate many of the tasks workers perform, and therefore potentially replace them. Those include jobs such as software developers, receptionists, translators and customer service representatives." Generally, none of those require professional certification or even a college degree; they are "unregulated" https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Guidance-on-Becoming-a-Professional-Translator.pdf https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Guidance-on... "Head counts among customer service representatives a category that, unlike software development, generally doesn't require a college education followed a similar pattern." The author assumes that software development requires a college degree NB. Even if it is common to have one this is not the same as a legal requirement https://www.nocsdegree.com/blog/companies-that-hire-programmers-without-degrees/ https://www.nocsdegree.com/blog/companies-that-hire-programm...

CHB0403085482 1y ago

Cos dictionary substitution is good enough /s https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-my-job-translators https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-my-job-transla...

aspenmayer 1y ago

https://archive.is/aPRzy https://archive.is/aPRzy