Young workers are entering a job market where artificial intelligence is reshaping many traditional entry-level roles.GETTY IMAGES
Artificial intelligence is changing what it means to start a career, stripping away many of the traditional tasks that once defined entry-level jobs while creating new ways for young workers to contribute.
A recent Stanford University study suggests the impact is already being felt by younger workers looking for AI-impacted roles such as customer support and software development. Since the widespread adoption of AI tools began in 2022, employment in AI-exposed roles for workers aged between 22 and 25 has dropped by 13 per cent. Meanwhile, employment levels in less-exposed roles remained stable or continued to grow.
The study also found a split in how employers use the technology: companies that deploy AI as a replacement for human labour are reducing hiring, while those that use it to complement workers are expanding their teams.
In Canada, the trend is beginning to take hold as well. A 2024 study by the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship suggests 42 per cent of tasks in youth-centric areas such as retail, clerical, and food services are vulnerable to automation. Reflecting that shift, Ottawa-based e-commerce company Shopify updated its hiring policy earlier this year, now requiring managers to show that AI can’t perform the work before approving new positions.
Mark Daley, Western University’s chief AI officer, responsible for leading the school’s AI research and application efforts, says it’s often the routine tasks – the ones typically handed to new hires – that AI is best at automating.
“If you ask someone who’s been working a white collar job for a decade or more, ‘What’s the stuff about your job that you hate doing?’ Everyone’s got a list, and a lot of the things on that list are the types of things that AI is getting good at automating,” he says, citing such tasks as weekly reports and balance sheets.
“These tasks are typically easier to automate or augment with AI. And also those are the tasks that the makers of AI models are economically incentivized to make their models good at doing.”
Those early tasks have long been a proving ground for co-op students and entry-level employees – a place to learn not only technical skills but also how to collaborate, communicate and read a room. And that, Mr. Daley says, is where human connection still matters most.
“If you look at our fundamental psychology, something I can’t fight is millions of years of evolution that has conditioned me that hanging out with other primates is really important,” Mr. Daley says. “Interacting with other humans is critical to us, and so if you want to accomplish anything in the world on a scale bigger than yourself, the only way to do that is collective action. So anything that requires cooperation, collaboration, and collective action is going to remain a profoundly human domain.”
That distinction – between tasks AI can handle and the human skills it cannot – frames the challenge for both employers and new graduates.
Zaki Usman, co-founder of Yotru, an AI-powered resume builder based in Waterloo, Ont. says AI is challenging young workers to not only perform tasks, but to automate, oversee, and optimize them, which means they’ve got to sharpen their AI skillsets as the number of roles shrinks.
“Our advice to our student users is to showcase their AI expertise, with prompt examples, workflows and outcomes,” he says. “If you can prove that you just didn’t use AI, but solved real business problems, you can stand out. And this is true across all disciplines.”
Leda Stawnychko, associate professor of strategy and organizational theory at Mount Royal University, goes one step further, saying that AI is reshaping the nature of work itself.
“AI is not just a job destroyer, it’s a job shaper,” she says. “While some roles are disappearing, new opportunities will be opening up for workers who bring curiosity, adaptability, and digital fluency to the table. AI lowers barriers to entry and expands the potential for innovation at the very start of a career. New grads can now launch ideas, test business models, or create content with a fraction of the resources it once required. In many ways, AI democratizes entrepreneurship. It also shifts the emphasis in the workplace from routine execution to higher-value contributions.”
She says that Gen Z workers who embrace AI can position themselves differently than previous generations. By automating repetitive tasks, they can shift their focus to projects, strategy and decision-making far earlier than past generations. That shift, she adds, will require employers to rethink how they manage and develop talent.
“New grads have far more to offer than just grinding through routine tasks, and in fact, many are overqualified for the entry-level positions they occupy,” she says. “If we think of AI as a fundamental skill – as we should – it becomes clear that they bring a distinct advantage to organizations through their digital fluency, curiosity, and willingness to experiment with new tools which are qualities that can unlock creativity and unexpected value.”
Ms. Stawnychko says that for employers, the challenge is to design roles that use these skills instead of wasting them.
“AI can be a launchpad for new hires, particularly if employers are intentional about creating psychologically safe, multigenerational workplaces where curiosity is rewarded,” she says.
The advice for students and recent graduates, she adds, is to double down on the skills that machines can’t replicate.
“To future-proof your career, focus not only on technical skills but also on the human capabilities that AI will not replace in the foreseeable future, such as empathy, adaptability, resilience, and leadership. There will always be work that requires the human touch, and leadership falls squarely in this category.”