Job postings for entry-level roles requiring a degree have dropped by almost two-thirds in the UK since 2022 \u2014 the year ChatGPT launched \u2014 twice as much as for all entry level roles, according to job search engine Adzuna. In the US, such listings are down 43 per cent over the same period. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Yet while the data points to a tough landscape for new graduates, it also indicates the causes are more nuanced. AI may be part of the picture but other factors, including economic uncertainty, post-Covid retrenchment and offshoring are probably playing an equal or bigger role in falling graduate hiring.<\/p>\n There is so far only tentative evidence in some of the most immediately exposed occupations of AI-related disruption, according to an FT analysis of the latest available data.<\/p>\n Advertisements for graduate-level roles have plunged in several sought-after UK sectors thought to be highly at risk from AI<\/a>. They were down by 75 per cent in banking and finance, 65 per cent in software development and 54 per cent in accounting in June this year compared with the same month in 2019, according to data from job search site Indeed.<\/p>\n But listings have also fallen sharply in fields identified as being under less acute pressure from generative AI, such as human resources, which was down 77 per cent, and civil engineering, where there had been a 55 per cent drop in openings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oliver Nash, associate director at the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW), said there were \u201cmultiple drivers\u201d of the hiring downturn, from the Labour government\u2019s fiscal changes to a decrease in VC funding and a slowdown in the public sector headcount. \u201cLarge increases in hiring during Covid, especially in tech\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. could now be being corrected through a natural process of normalisation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Separate analysis by Indeed found only a weak link between occupations where overall postings, including non-graduate roles, fell most, and those where job descriptions had most mentions of AI (suggesting hirers had rapidly adopted the technology).<\/p>\n Pawel Adrjan, director of Emea economic research at Indeed, said the findings were likely to reflect the tech sector\u2019s particular problems and a broader downturn in the UK jobs market. \u201cAgainst this backdrop, it\u2019s hard to distinguish any possible subtle impacts of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, FT analysis of US official data showed there was no clear correlation between an occupation\u2019s potential exposure to generative AI (on an International Labour Organization (ILO) measure of the tasks susceptible to automation), and whether it lost young workers between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking specifically at occupations considered to be at high or moderate risk from generative AI, some graduate roles such as graphic designers and management analysts have thousands fewer workers aged between 20 and 24 than in the year ChatGPT launched. The drop is also noticeable in some highly exposed non-graduate occupations, such as insurance claim assessors, credit counsellors or loan interviewers.<\/p>\n But in other graduate sectors, such as accountants and auditors, youth employment<\/a> was booming as of last year, according to US government statistics \u2014 and this holds for many tech sector roles, despite a 2 per cent decline in young people employed in software development. <\/p>\n Other US government data to June 2025 shows that a recent rise in unemployment among young men with college degrees in the US was concentrated in manual sectors such as construction and production, rather than white-collar occupations.<\/p>\n David Autor, professor of economics at MIT, said political turmoil in the US, including whipsawing tariffs, the government slashing its contracts with big consulting firms and cuts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) to scientists and federal workers, were probably having more impact than new technology.<\/p>\n \u201cOutside some specific occupations [such as] programmers, I think it\u2019s premature to ascribe recent labour market woes to AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at the professional network LinkedIn, argued that while new technology could play a role, the main driver of a countrywide slowdown in entry-level hiring was the uncertainty over the global economic outlook.<\/p>\n \u201cParamount\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009is the uncertain macroeconomic environment. We know from our data that when hiring slows overall, entry level workers feel a bigger impact,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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