Not a surprise, but here's some actual data about what CEOs are planning.
https://gizmodo.com/the-young-are-being-battered-by-ai-as-hiring-shifts-to-older-workers-2000759608
Job prospects for early-career workers took a turn for the worse last year.
In the first quarter of the year, the job market for 22-to-27-year-olds “deteriorated noticeably,” according to a New York Fed report. Later, Fed Chair Jerome Powell admitted that AI might be partly to blame. Companies that would have ordinarily hired recent graduates are now increasingly trying to have AI assistants automate that work, Powell explained. By the end of the year, the job market for these young workers was at its harshest since the worst days of the pandemic.
Now, a global survey of CEOs by consulting firm Oliver Wyman indicates that things could get even worse over the next two years.
According to the survey, the share of CEOs saying that they were looking to reduce junior roles over the next year or two doubled to 43% from 17% just last year. Only 17% of CEOs said they are shifting hiring to focus on more junior positions.
Instead of young workers, executives are increasingly focusing on hiring older workers. Roughly 30% of respondents said they are shifting hiring to more mid-level roles, up from only 10% last year.
The change is AI-driven, the report concludes.
“Notably, the CEOs with the longest planning horizons are the most likely to plan headcount reductions,” the report said. “That suggests they expect a structurally leaner organization not as a cost measure but as the destination — the endpoint of an AI-augmented operating model that requires fewer people, deployed differently.”
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It’s less AI on its own. It’s more of a series of factors. AI is only one of them. It’s just at the moment, with all the anger over data centers, it is a convenient boogeyman the Corporate Manager class can get the peons to blame all their problems on. Instead of acknowledging the plethora of complex factors and the areas where their own ineptitude contributed.
The Boomers as one example commanded one of the largest shares of Capital in the investment markets. The Boomers are now either moving into retiring en-mass. Or are several years into retirement or more. Meaning vast sums are moving into safer investments. Meaning there’s less available capital for riskier investments into businesses. And some industries relied heavily on investors to keep their heads above water and people on staff. Without periodic infusions of investor bucks. They need to cut weight.
There’s also been a lot of market consolidation, over expansion and buyouts that realistically should not have happened over the past few decades. But the ease with which excess Capital could be accessed by Businesses made some firms far too ambitious.
American Businesses also grew addicted to Globalization and outsourcing everything. Even today they maybe laying off Americans and telling us one thing. While turning around and hiring foreigners for pennies on the dollar and allowing them to telecommute from whatever Mumbai Slum they’re living in. It doesn’t help that Indians once they work their way into management often tend to only hire Indians.
A lot of places also just way overhired during COVID. So they’re shedding weight.
College Degrees and some certifications also don’t mean much outside of specific niches anymore. As far too many have them and some colleges will pass them out to anyone with a pulse who can show up mostly on time. For decades a Degree was the accepted credential substitute for the competency testing Companies and Government agencies were no longer allowed to do. When everyone has one. And the act of having is no longer a guarantee of basic grasp of fundamentals. Their worth correspondingly plummets. And attention turns to the older generations who’ve already proven themselves. As opposed to the young up and comers who could very well be mouth breathing retards.
That’s just a few of the many factors playing into things. AI is only part of it.
Yes, I agree. Nice summary, too.