The debate over whether AI will replace human labor is no longer only theoretical. New hiring research suggests the pressure may already be showing up in one of the most vulnerable places in the job market: entry-level tech roles.
SignalFire, a data-driven VC firm that tracks job movements of over 600 million employees and 80 million companies on LinkedIn, says tech companies hired fewer recent college graduates in 2024 than they did in 2023. At the same time, companies continued to add more experienced workers, especially across the top 15 Big Tech businesses.
Where the hiring shift is showing up
SignalFire found that Big Tech companies cut new graduate hiring by 25% in 2024 compared with 2023. Startups also pulled back, reducing graduate recruitment by 11% from the prior year.
The firm did not disclose the exact number of fewer graduates hired in its data. A spokesperson said the total was in the thousands.
This does not prove that AI alone caused the decline. Hiring can move for many reasons, and the source does not claim every lost entry-level opportunity came directly from automation. But Asher Bantock, SignalFire's head of research, says there is "co nvincing evidence" that AI is a significant contributing factor.
The pattern matters because the pullback is not spread evenly across all levels of experience. While recent graduates faced weaker demand, workers with some professional background saw stronger hiring.
Why entry-level work is exposed
Entry-level roles often include routine, lower-risk tasks. Those are the kinds of tasks generative AI is increasingly able to handle, according to the source article.
The areas named include coding, debugging, financial research, and software installation. If AI tools can do more of that work, companies may decide they need fewer people at the very beginning of the career ladder.
That does not mean every junior role disappears. It does mean the first job may be harder to justify when software can complete pieces of the work that once trained new employees.
This is the central tension for recent graduates. The tasks that made them useful to employers were also the tasks that helped them learn. If AI absorbs more of that work, the route from classroom to first professional role becomes less direct.
Finance shows the same pressure
The source also points to financial analysis as an example of how AI can affect early-career work outside pure software roles.
Gabe Stengel, the founder of AI financial analyst startup Rogo, said onstage at Newcomer's financial technology summit last week that Rogo's tool "can do almost all the work I did in the analysis of those companies," referring to work from the start of his career at Lazard investment bank. He added: "We can put together the materials, diligence the company, look through their financials."
Large investment banks have not broadly said they are cutting analyst hiring because of AI. But the New York Times reported last year that executives at firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley had previously considered reducing junior staff hires by up to two-thirds and lowering pay for those hired because AI-assisted work was less demanding than before.
The point is not that every firm has already acted. It is that employers are actively evaluating how much junior labor they need when AI tools can complete parts of the analysis, preparation, and research process.
Experience is becoming more valuable
While entry-level hiring has weakened in SignalFire's data, demand for experienced professionals has grown.
According to SignalFire's report, Big Tech companies increased hiring by 27% for professionals with two to five years of experience. Startups hired 14% more people in that same seniority range.
This creates a difficult labor-market split. Companies appear to want workers who can use judgment, operate independently, and apply AI tools inside real workflows. But the same companies may be offering fewer openings where new graduates can build that judgment in the first place.
Heather Doshay, SignalFire's people and talent partner, described the result as a worsened version of a familiar problem: graduates struggle to get hired without experience, but they need a job to gain experience. The source says AI is making that dilemma considerably worse.
What new graduates can take from it
The clearest advice in the source is practical: learn to use AI tools well. Doshay's message to new graduates was direct: "AI won't take your job if you're the one who's best at using it."
For early-career workers, that means AI literacy is becoming part of employability. It is not enough to know only the task; graduates may need to show they can use AI to complete the task faster, check the output, and apply human judgment where the tool is not enough.
For employers, the risk is different. If companies remove too many entry-level roles, they may weaken the pipeline that produces the experienced workers they still want to hire. SignalFire's data shows demand rising for people with two to five years of experience, but those people only exist because someone gave them a first role.
The immediate picture is uneven. AI may be shrinking parts of the entry-level job market, while increasing the value of people who already have workplace experience. For new graduates, the first rung of the tech career ladder looks harder to reach, and the ability to work fluently with AI may become one of the most important ways to climb it.