AI has "eaten" 13% of junior positions in programming, finance, and maintenance in three years, — Stanford study

Young professionals have lost more than a tenth of their job opportunities over the past three years due to AI. Juniors are suffering, while the situation for middles and above has improved.

A new study by Stanford University shows that artificial intelligence makes it much harder for beginners to find jobs in software development, customer service, finance, and administration, reports Bloomberg. Over the past three years, their employment has fallen by 13%.

According to the authors, Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab and economist Erik Brynjolfsson, young people aged 22-25 have been hit hardest. The study, in particular, tracked data from the Automatic Data Processing payroll processing system and reviewed payroll information from thousands of companies with a total of millions of employees in the United States.

At the same time, employment trends remained unchanged or improved for more experienced workers in the same industries — even those with the most severe declines in entry-level positions. It is likely that the productivity of older workers has increased due to AI, or, as in in the case of the largest Australian bankThey simply took over some of the responsibilities of the eliminated positions. Employment of inexperienced young people in low-tech industries has also increased.

Although a recent MIT study showed that most businesses that use AI have not seen a significant improvement profitability, many companies still implemented AI at the expense of positions for beginners. According to Tom’s Hardware, in some industries, such implementation can hurt the growth of startups and to some extent “bleed them dry.”

There are two approaches to implementing AI: to lay off and eliminate “unnecessary” positions or to increase productivity and increase business momentum without reducing the workforce. If artificial intelligence makes high-performing employees work better, but eliminates the roles that allowed them to achieve this expertise, where will the next generation of programmers, accountants, and administrative assistants come from?