AI is 'breaking' entry-level jobs that Gen Z workers need to launch careers, LinkedIn exec warns

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fortune.com/2025/05/25/ai-entry-level-jobs-gen-…

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As a systemically unemployed zoomer, yes. Although not so much AI as automation.

The only times AI actually works is in fields like health insurance claim processing, where the goal is provide the worst service possible.

AI isn't a magic human replacement in most fields at the moment.

What language models allow is automate tasks that couldn't be automated before. For example, if you spread a 10% time gain from the people who are already working, you are going to hire 10% fewer people.

I'll say here, where no one knows me, that GenAI tools have probably cut my workload by half. Probably more if you discount the amount of time I spend staying ahead of folks. I can also say that none of my teams have had additional any headcount approved in the last 2 years.

That honestly sucks as a zoomer. I will say that the people we have added to teams have all came from internal promotions or acquiring small companies. Maybe start a passion project company and start building something even if it doesn't make money and is mostly on paper.

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I have to do a lot of slides and emails. So I can dump in massive email threas, tell it the outcome and address every concern in my writing style. Then I read it over, delete parts and hit send. Same with prepping presentations. I can say recap the quarter's highlights for xyz, pick a few and move on. I still have to present them and read things, but that's getting to be the large part of the job.


I’ve definitely cut down a lot of my workload with them.

I have data between multiple external systems I need to manage, so I built some tools to automate it.

Since the LLM agent can do follow up queries against the APIs independently it excels at cross referencing between systems. This work is impossible to know beforehand, so you can’t traditionally automate it.

So what used to waste several hours a week of pulling data, searching with crap search tools, pulling data again, etc. In 12 browser tabs is now just an LLM doing a couple dozen tool calls.

That leaves me to just take the output and act on it.

I’ve done tests and it is accurate and reproducible enough. Plus I already have a good sense of when such info exists, so if it is wrong I can trivially redirect it.

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I wrote model context protocol servers







I sort of wonder how in half of AI news reporting AI is useless and failing to perform at all, making all the tasks it was supposed to fix just take longer. And in the other half of AI news reporting, AI is killing jobs because it is decreasing task load by so much that hiring is stalled… Both can be true in isolated cases, but only one of those can be true in a statistically significant way.


I'm going to let you in on a little secret here.

The people you are telling about this are not the people who have the power to do anything about it.

So all you have accomplished by sharing this is making people who are completely powerless feel bad.

Congratulations, you've made things worse.

People who have don't have power shouldn't be talking about bad things they can't change, because you'll make other powerless people feel bad. Powerless people should just shut up.
Isn't that basically what you're saying?


Strong disagree. There is a lot we can do all about it. Starting with voting and promoting politicians who want to do something about it (yes, voting matters). Then, starting a discussion about the social use of work and labor. If these entry-level jobs can be automated, what quality were they exactly testing new hires for? Let's make it an interviewing step instead.

Maybe make the entry level job one hierarchical layer higher. Instead of data entry, manage a fleet of data-entry AI agents.

And, also, wonder about the place of labor in our society. If not directly talking about basic income, talk about funding for more education, more training, on of the various modalities that exist: private or public funding, private or public college, in-company training, training through non-profits, etc.

The AI wave comes with huge social implication, and it is collectively that we will decide whether it makes individual situations worse or better.

I think you misunderstand.

I''m not saying that "it is impossible for something to be done".

I am saying that, "when you are communicating it to the masses in this method, you are not communicating the people who have the ability to actually do something about it".

It's a problem with the mainstream.

We would all have to work together to change its course, and even something as simple as me saying that "we are not the people who can do anything about it" gets opposition.

You would not work with me, therefore, there is no "we" to fight against this.

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The fact that you are arguing with me about this is evidence that I am correct.

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Fine then.

Prove me wrong.

Do something, anything at all about it, in real life and not just on the internet.

And get, like, I don't know, five people to do it with you.

Do that much, and I'll admit I'm wrong.

I mean, I try to be a reasonable person. I tend to be calm and collected and to withhold judgment until all of the information is in.

In this case, all of the information is in.

People will bitch about it forever on the internet, but will never, ever do anything in real life about it.

5 people is not a really huge ask.

Get five people to congregate with you at the footsteps of a company that is using AI to make employment decisions and protest it.

That seems like a reasonable thing, right? And five people is enough to make a hubbub about it, at least with the company, right? So that's a reasonable metric, right?

But if you can't do that much, which is reasonably attainable for an individual, then you'll just have to accept that I'm right, no matter who upvotes or downvotes who in the thread.







Edward snowden can't just bomb the NSA. But at least he left his family and nationality to expose it.



Comments from other communities

The article also talks about how AI isn't delivering the savings or advantages promised, in a number of cases.

So, it's not all doom and gloom.

And if it isn't now, it certainly won't when the AI providers have to raise prices by x10 to cover the cost of operations. Venture capital won't last forever.



LinkedIn is the worst thing ever.
People with jobs dont use it.

Unemployed people use it for jobs.
And people who take advantage of unemployed use it.

Its a data broker company- never put your pin code in it.


This is exactly what I've been worried about.

At least in IT, companies have already been prioritizing more senior hires over juniors in order to minimize the overhead of training juniors and managing additional headcount. They just overwork seniors. That's been happening for maybe 5 years.

Now, companies are all like, "why can't we find any mid-levels/seniors?!' Dipshits.

Time to lie on the resume


Same energy as "Looking for entry-level employees with 10 years of experience"



Oh man better stop what I'm doing and listen to

LINKEDIN EXECS


Isn't LinkedIn owned by Microsoft?

Is it? Lemme check by (on windows) pressing CTRL ALT SHIFT WINDOWS + L



I was just talking about this earlier. The startup I worked for a bunch of years ago hired a lot of people to do customer support and some manual tasks. Most of that is likely automated away now by AI. Well, most of the people hired then went on to successful careers. Lots of directors and managers in that cohort now. They got their start at an entry level job, made connections, learned a lot of stuff. But that kind of job is rarer now.

Capitalism is like a cancer. It grows and grows and grows and kills the host. It knows nothing else.

And those positions likely weren't automated away as much as they were purposely enshittifed to the point where an algorithm could do the job. No ones wants to deal with customer support bots but over the years we've been made to accept worse and worse standards so companies can save a buck.



It is near impossible to get internships these days.

Pulling up the ladder, it seems.


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