The statement “AI is taking our jobs” has struck fear in the hearts of the working class but has been especially alarming for new graduates looking to enter the job market.
The fear that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is eliminating job opportunities for new graduates is being overstated, causing unnecessary panic among the next generation of workers. The creation of AI has indeed shifted the dynamic in the job market, allowing companies to become more productive by offloading some work that was primarily done by humans to be done directly by AI or assisted by it.
Despite this truth, there’s a large disconnect between the amount of fear that new grads feel towards the idea of AI taking their jobs and the reality of job cuts that have been attributed directly to it. Studies have shown that 62 percent of university seniors are either somewhat or very concerned about generative AI, whereas only 5 percent of job cuts had an explicit relation to AI in 2025.
When it comes to explaining the recent job market struggle, AI’s rise as a cultural and corporate obsession has made it an easy target. Although AI has had an impact, it’s only one piece of the puzzle, and its role is often overstated relative to other forces such as post-pandemic complications, outsourcing, and broader market shifts.
Generally speaking, job cuts have been on an upward trend, with a reported 58 per cent increase in job cuts from 761,368 in 2024 to 1,206,374 in 2025. The contribution of AI is real and creates an impact. However, it’s still far from the main cause. In the US, the top four most cited reasons for the layoffs include DOGE Actions (293,753), market and economic conditions (253,206), store, unit, or department closing (191,480), and restructuring (133,611), whereas AI comes in fourth with 54,836.
The data shows that while AI is clearly a contributor to the broader issue, it’s far from the whole reason. This pattern is visible in the technology sector as well, which is often the first in mind when AI is mentioned.
In the tech space, there’s a large proportion of cuts that come from issues relating to the pandemic and outsourcing. The technology sector expanded aggressively during the pandemic due to increased demand for technological services, but post-pandemic, demand normalized, and cuts followed.
Similarly, there has been long-standing pressure to outsource internal processes, with 76 percent of global executives reporting outsourcing their IT functions. Not only has it been an issue, but the amount of money dedicated to outsourcing has been projected to increase at a rate of 5.5 percent until 2029. There are many alternative factors to blame for the increase in job cuts across the board, but it isn’t being communicated adequately.
AI has become an easy and dramatic explanation to show to the public, even when it’s not the main cause. The first thought that comes to mind shouldn’t be that “AI is taking our jobs” but that it’s taking our headlines.
AI’s perception as a job taker is built around its hype in the media, running ahead of its proven results and widening the gap between perception and reality. Its high visibility in recent times makes for a punchier headline for outlets and even more so for those affected. Coupled with high incentives for companies to push AI, serving as the golden ticket to investor support, makes for a snowball of AI news; it’s easier for companies to frame job cuts as “AI Restructuring” rather than the aforementioned larger pieces of the puzzle.
Large corporations like Amazon disingenuously announced large job cuts with a connection to AI, which were later walked back as leaning down the bureaucracy. Framing cuts this way serves stakeholders while simultaneously creating a convenient scapegoat for the failing job market as a by-product. Not only have companies created this scapegoat, but they’re boasting the abilities and impact of it for productivity despite its unproven capabilities.
In a survey with a sample of 2,000 CEO’s conducted by International Business Machines, a large IT consulting firm, only 25 per cent of AI initiatives forecasted an expected return on investment, and only 16 per cent have scaled enterprise-wide. Although a large majority of companies are indeed experimenting with AI, its adoption isn’t trivial and doesn’t always guarantee the clear-cut productivity boost narrative that’s driven by the media.
Partially fueled by the media landscape, there’s an impression growing that AI is taking over the role of new grads, but junior hires have never wholly served the purpose of creating an immediate output. The primary role of a junior is to be a sponge that accumulates knowledge, eventually creating a large return, an investment. Even if it’s the case that an AI can complete a portion of work that a junior would regularly do, the broader purpose of the junior to grow shouldn’t be overlooked.
By cutting junior hiring, companies would be severing their talent pipeline, leading to a reduced pool of talent for upper positions in the long run. While an argument can be made that the production increases of AI will justify a decrease in hiring, it’s short-sighted and doesn’t paint the whole picture.
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argues that in the long run, productivity increases can lower the effective cost of labour, promoting firms to expand and create new industries. So, while productivity gains may reduce hiring in the short run, they do not tell the whole long-term story.
It’s true that new grads are facing the toughest job market since pre-pandemic levels, but this time it is coinciding with the rise of AI. Jobs have generally been declining, and those who need their first jobs, like new grads, are going to be affected disproportionately.
A suffering economy causes this to take effect as companies may be less willing to take a chance on new and unproven talent, resulting in periods of economic downturn being especially bad for new grads. This disproportionate effect on new grads is not new. However, what’s new is the tendency to attribute that familiar pattern too heavily to AI’s perceived impact on junior-level roles, even though broader economic weakness is likely doing much of the work.
Nolan Su-Hackett is a fourth-year Computer Engineering Student.
Tags
artificial intelligence, Big tech, job market, Opinions
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.
Shayaan Iqbal
Wow what a kneeslapper title Nolan! 😂😂😂 Hahahaha 😂😂