Hiring of new grads by the 15 largest tech companies has fallen by more than 50% since 2019, according to a new report from VC firm SignalFire. While hiring for mid- and senior-level roles rebounded last year following mass layoffs across all levels in 2023, it declined at the entry level. The gap between the overall unemployment level and that of recent college grads recently reached an all-time high, according to census data.
International Business Machines Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said the tech giant has used artificial intelligence, and specifically AI agents, to replace the work of a couple hundred human resources workers. As a result, it has hired more programmers and salespeople, he said. While there haven’t yet been widespread layoffs or downsizing as a result of AI across the economy, some business leaders have said they are holding down head count as they investigate the use of the technology.
Returning to a measure we introduced in 2023, we examine American data on employment by occupation, singling out the type of workers that are often believed to be vulnerable to ai. These are white-collar employees, describing people in back-office support, financial operations, sales and much more besides. There is a similar pattern here: we find no evidence of an ai hit (see chart 2). Quite the opposite, in fact. In the past year the share of employment in white-collar work has risen very slightly.
AI is creating new work that cancels out some potential time savings from using AI in the first place.
Adoption of AI is going gangbusters, but results in the marketplace aren’t dramatic. Best case I’ve seen is that AI is like a lot of other automation, it free’s time for more work; not less.
Quote Citation: Thomas Claburn, “Generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages at all, economists claim”, Tue 29 Apr 2025, https://www.
