Entry-Level Jobs For Gen Z Are Disappearing: Experts
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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The AI revolution isn't just on its way; it's happening, and the impacts of this new technology are quickly being felt, particularly by Gen Z.
Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is expected to make up approximately 30 percent of the global workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the workforce they're entering is rapidly changing.
According to a YouGov survey from March 2025, the majority of Americans (56 percent) use AI tools, and 28 percent use AI tools weekly, while a recent study from KPMG found that 66 percent of people regularly use AI. One impact of AI is that it is quickly coming for entry-level jobs, meaning that they don't just look different; soon, they may not exist at all.
Newsweek spoke to the experts to find out more.
Are Entry-Level Jobs Being Replaced By AI?
Millions of students will be graduating this spring. But the mood as they do so may be a trepidatious one, as experts are continuing to sound the alarm on a decline in entry-level jobs.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva
Aneesh Raman, LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer, likened the shift to the decline in manufacturing in the early 1980s in an op-ed for The New York Times, while a report from Signalfire said that entry-level jobs are "collapsing," and a "generational hiring shift is leaving new graduates behind."
So, why are entry-level jobs being hit hard by AI? "Entry-level jobs tend to involve routine, well-defined tasks—exactly the kind of work current AI systems are best suited to automate," Professor Daniela Rus, the Director of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, told Newsweek over email.
Keri Mesropov, founder of Spring Talent Development, shared a similar sentiment. Speaking to Newsweek over email, she said, "AI is rapidly reshaping entry-level jobs, automating repetitive tasks, streamlining workflows, and, in some cases, eliminating roles entirely."
Mesropov said that this technological leap could open the door to work that is more strategic and engaging. But "it also removes many of the formative, tacit-knowledge building experiences that previously shaped early career development."
A Changing Workplace Culture
Newsweek also spoke to Josh Bersin, a global industry analyst and CEO at The Josh Bersin Company. Bersin told Newsweek that entry work is not going away. However, it is changing.
"Entry-level hiring has slowed," he told Newsweek, but said that this is "largely because of the economy."
And economic concerns are high. President Donald Trump's economic agenda, particularly the imposition of tariffs on dozens of American trading partners, has sparked fears that the economy will tip into a recession, marked by weak growth, job losses and further inflation.
It's not the easiest environment for young people to be graduating into. However, Bersin told Newsweek that the large companies he speaks to tell him they are, in fact, hiring college graduates for two key reasons. Part of the reason companies have entry-level roles is to "build a talent pipeline," pointing to younger people as "candidates for future growth."
"Great employers succeed by retaining workers and developing them into leaders," Bersin said.
And, this isn't the first time that the workplace has been transformed by new technologies. Bersin likened the shift to the digital revolution of the 2000s and said, "As with all technology evolutions, the AI revolution creates many new careers," including "building AI systems, managing AI data, training and administering AI platforms, and then the higher level jobs of "leveraging" and using AI in legal, HR, design, sales, creative work."
To Rus, it's about evolution. "Rather than eliminating the need for early-career professionals, AI shifts the nature of their contributions," she said, adding, "We still need people to understand how these systems work, to adapt them to specific contexts, to troubleshoot unexpected behavior, and to build the next generation of tools."
"We need a strong pipeline of talent that starts with entry-level roles, internships, and hands-on learning opportunities," Rus said. "These early experiences remain essential stepping stones, helping people build technical confidence, domain fluency, and problem-solving skills. And soon, the skills companies will be looking for in entry-level workers is how well they can make the most of AI tools."
Though it's easy to forget through the noise of alarms sounding about the AI revolution, AI requires human interference. Mesropov highlighted this, noting that the technology needs "sophisticated human input context-heavy prompts and judgment calls only developed through lived experience."
A New Gen, In A New Gen Workplace
According to YouGov's March data, adults under 30 are more likely than older Americans to use AI tools (76 percent vs. 51 percent) and are more likely to use AI at least weekly.
Newsweek also spoke with Professor Melissa Valentine, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. In a phone call with Newsweek, she highlighted how tech-literate Gen Z is. "Their skills are changing," she said. Valentine said that when you've had technology integrated into your life, "It's a different mechanism."
And according to Valentine, the onus isn't on Gen Z to figure out how to optimize this best. "It's up to companies to be ready to figure out how to make use of kids who are so good at technology."
Valentine shared a real-world example of this, explaining that she had a young man join her team who was "so digitally savvy."
"He just came in and picked up all the internal tools to make the AI agent for himself," she said. "People on his team who were in their forties, they were using Gen AI," she said. But not like the younger colleague could. "He was one of the most AI power users that I've seen.
Rus echoed this. "The advantage Gen Z has is that they are digital natives. They are well-positioned to work alongside AI, not in opposition to it," she told Newsweek. "Young people today are using AI to solve problems and even have fun by creating stories and images."
This isn't just an era of digital natives then, but AI natives, according to Rus. Gen Z's "Comfort with rapid technological change makes them ideal candidates to help shape how we use these tools ethically, inclusively, and creatively."
For Bersin, the prevalence of AI literacy in young people is a key part of what makes them attractive to employers. "They see tremendous skills in using AI and bringing new ideas in younger workers," he said.
Looking Ahead
The future then is unclear but not necessarily bleak.
"There's an optimistic path: if we rethink what early-career roles look like, we can design new kinds of "onramps" that blend learning with production—such as AI-assisted engineering apprenticeships, project-based learning environments, and hybrid human-AI teams," Rus told Newsweek.
Mesropov told Newsweek that the remaining jobs in five years will demand "more than technical talent."
"They'll require emotional intelligence, communication, adaptability and critical reasoning," she said. Mesropov highlighted the importance of building these skills alongside AI, noting that without this, "Gen Z will fall behind not just in how to use AI, but in how to lead with it."
Valentine told Newsweek that there is an "opportunity for business models to evolve and shift" where "information is more readily at our fingertips."
"What if we solved problems better?" Valentine said. "That's my hope. And I do think it's possible."
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