Companies that adopted artificial intelligence increased their number of senior employees by 6.7% over five years, while junior hiring at the same firms fell 3%. Overall hiring rose, but the shift works against young jobseekers, who depend largely on entry-level openings.
Bharat Chandar, a researcher at Stanford University, and Bouke Klein Teeselink, a researcher at King's College London, identified the trend in a paper released on the 21st after analyzing companies in 41 countries, Bloomberg reported.
The researchers drew on a sample of 1.25 billion job postings and 154 million employment records from January 2021 through March 2026. At those companies, the share of junior employees dropped 1.9 percentage points. The pullback in lower-ranking positions appeared simultaneously in several countries, including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.
"AI is labor-saving for junior workers and labor-augmenting for senior workers in highly exposed occupations," the researchers said. They added that "the decline in junior employment is somewhat deeper in wealthier and more digitized economies."
Employment in computer and mathematical occupations, cited as the jobs most exposed to AI, rose overall. Among companies in those fields, hiring at firms that adopted AI increased 0.8 percentage points over five years. Even in this group, however, the researchers said they observed the same shift in weight toward senior workers.
By age group, young adults fared worst. Employment among those aged 22 to 25 in highly exposed occupations was 19% lower last month than it would have been had it grown at the same pace as in occupations with low exposure. The Pew Research Center also reported that young Americans are growing increasingly worried about job losses caused by AI.
Bloomberg said concerns about AI-driven job displacement have been overshadowed this month by warnings from AI company executives and employees calling for a slower pace, noting that they are pointing to the risks AI models pose to humans.
