Here’s what’s on our plate today:

• 🔬 The Laboratory: AI is erasing the entry-level career ladder.

• ⚡ Quick Bits, No Fluff: SpaceX–xAI, Firefox AI, Ring pet search.

• 🛠️ Brain Snack for Builders: Design roles that teach before automating.

• 🗳️ Today’s Poll: How secure does your job feel post-AI?

Let’s dive in. No floaties needed…

The Laboratory

How AI is impacting the future of young professionals

Since the pandemic ended in 2022, tech companies have cut jobs, pointing to excessive hiring during the lockdown-driven boom in online services. Initially, these layoffs were explained as a return to more normal growth expectations after the surge in pandemic-era hiring. However, the waves of layoffs did not end there. In 2023, industry contractions and global economic shifts were blamed for layoffs; in 2024 and 2025, automation was cited as the culprit.

In 2025, an estimated 112k workers were affected by tech layoffs. Among these, notable companies that laid off workers included Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, and Meta. While tech companies justified the layoffs, independent analyses attributed them to AI automation or AI-driven restructuring, sparking broader discussions about the future of work.

However, some, including Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst, believe that “This latest move signals that Amazon is likely realizing enough AI-driven productivity gains within corporate teams to support a substantial reduction in force.”

The news has reignited discussions around AI-enabled automation and its impact on the global workforce.

The ground reality of layoffs

The anxiety felt in the workforce is now tangible and quantifiable in surveys. When Randstad asked 27,000 people across 35 countries about AI at work, four out of five said it will change what they do every day. That alone isn’t surprising. What is surprising is how clearly the data now lines up with what people, especially younger workers, are sensing.

Beneath the headline employment numbers, the floor is shifting. Job listings asking for AI agent skills have exploded, rising nearly sixteenfold in a single year.

At the same time, payroll data tracking millions of workers shows a quiet but meaningful drop in early-career employment in roles most exposed to AI. These aren’t layoffs making headlines. They’re jobs that simply aren’t being created anymore.

For Gen Z, this feels even more personal. Nearly one in five Gen Z workers reports being worried that AI could replace their jobs within the next two years. This affects not only their current but also their future employment prospects.

Entry-level roles have always been how people learn how work works. They’re the first rung on the ladder: junior analysts, coordinators, assistants, support staff. And those are exactly the jobs most vulnerable to automation.

This is work that is repetitive, rules-based, and transactional, and is often seen as the building blocks for future workers. The problem isn’t that AI is replacing senior professionals. It’s that it’s erasing the starting line.

Researchers at MIT estimate that AI can already perform tasks equivalent to nearly 12% of the U.S. workforce, representing about $1.2T in wages, across fields such as finance, healthcare, and professional services. This isn’t about future potential. It’s about present-day math. In more and more cases, using AI is simply cheaper than hiring a human to do the same task.

So when young workers say they’re worried, they’re not imagining a dystopia. They’re noticing that fewer doors are opening where doors used to be. The jobs that taught people how to become valuable are being automated before the next generation ever gets a chance to learn them.

The corporate rhetoric-reality gap

Amid the closure of entry-level job opportunities and reports of mass layoffs, companies have adopted various messaging strategies. Although the messaging may help preserve brand values, it often fails to address growing concerns among the workforce.

Accenture eliminated 11,000 jobs, warning that employees unable to transition to AI-centric roles would be let go.

Similarly, Chegg laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce, and Microsoft announced 6,000 layoffs. The pattern is consistent: companies discuss reskilling, then lay off workers.

Then there are the numbers that expose this disconnect. While companies report intentions to launch upskilling or reskilling initiatives, analyses by firms such as McKinsey indicate limited follow-through.

While companies continue to say their focus is on upskilling existing staff, a BCG study found that among the 89% of organizations reporting workforce needs for improved AI skills, only 6% had begun upskilling in a meaningful way. One of the key reasons behind this disconnect is the cost of upskilling the existing workforce.

Randstad CEO Sander van ’t Noordende acknowledged the tension candidly: “Companies want what companies always want: they want to save costs and increase efficiency.” Nearly half of the surveyed workers believe AI will benefit corporations more than the workforce. They’re not wrong.

This disconnect has further eroded trust between leadership and frontline workers.

The perception gap between leadership and frontline workers has become a chasm. A survey found that 95% of employers forecast growth for this year, while only 51% of employees shared that optimism.

Similarly, just 6% of directors and VP-level executives believe AI poses a threat to their jobs, compared to 62% of Gen Z workers who believe AI could replace their jobs within the next decade, which could explain the disconnect between strategy and implementation for upskilling.

Amid this growing disconnect, governments have also responded inadequately, further complicating the situation.

The role of government inaction

In Europe, policymakers have predominantly focused on balancing AI regulation with accelerating adoption, largely overlooking the deeper structural impacts on employment and income security.

The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers was allocated an annual budget of 35M euros for 2021-2027. That’s not serious money for a serious problem.

Calls for a European AI Social Compact tied to the European Social Fund aim to align technological progress with labor protections and targeted upskilling. But these proposals remain in early stages. The debate over the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework could take years.

Similarly, in the U.S., policy has been fragmented. President Trump’s executive order directing federal departments to support more than 1 million apprenticeships annually is a start, but it lacks the funding and coordination mechanisms needed for systemic impact.

Proposed legislation requiring companies to report AI-related layoffs would at least create transparency, but transparency without response is just documentation of decline.

Although state governments have tried to address the issue, the impact of their policies is often limited and does little to address the broader, long-term concerns of young professionals. The most promising work is happening at the state level. Tennessee, North Carolina, and Utah have begun using MIT’s Iceberg platform to model how AI might reshape their workforces down to the county level.

These states are running proactive simulations to evaluate different policy scenarios before committing billions to training investments.

Other important factors influencing opinions and delaying regulatory intervention are views within the tech industry that deny the displacement narrative. Principal among the voices denying AI’s impact on the workforce is NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

The optimistic case

Huang argues that greater productivity typically leads to more hiring, not less, citing historical patterns where automation created jobs rather than destroying them.

The World Economic Forum projects that 170 million new roles will emerge by 2030, alongside 92 million displaced people, for a net gain of approximately 78 million jobs.

This optimistic case rests on several assumptions that warrant examination.

The notion that displaced workers will readily secure new AI jobs is misleading. Most roles are elsewhere, require different skills, and demand a master’s degree.

Even if some credentials are relaxed, the transition is tough. Meanwhile, less than 10% of firms use AI regularly, so slow adoption is no guarantee of safety. Disruption is coming fast, with major impact expected to become visible by 2027-2028.

The wave of tech layoffs that began after the post-pandemic hiring surge in 2022 has evolved into a structural shift driven increasingly by AI and automation.

The risk ahead

Early cuts in the tech workforce reflected overhiring and economic corrections, but today the disruptions hit the very entry-level roles that launch careers. Surveys, payroll data, and job postings indicate that younger workers, especially Gen Z, face a diminishing on-ramp to meaningful work.

While corporate rhetoric promises reskilling, reality lags, without coordinated policy or substantial workforce planning, the post-pandemic layoff trend risks becoming a permanent redefinition of opportunity rather than a temporary correction.

Brain Snack (for Builders)

Wednesday Poll

Quick Bits, No Fluff

• SpaceX–xAI Deal: Elon Musk is folding xAI into SpaceX, consolidating his AI lab with the rocket company in a multibillion-dollar internal tie-up.

• Firefox AI Switch: Mozilla is adding a clear master toggle so Firefox users can disable all built-in AI features after backlash over the quietly enabled link previews.

• Ring Pet Search: Ring’s AI “Search Party” can now help even non-Ring camera owners find lost dogs by matching pet photos with footage from nearby opted-in cameras.

Meme of the Day

Rate This Edition