Interesting. However just because this is true right now doesn't mean it will be true going forward. Unique to the current moment is that there are simultaneously (1) high interest rates and a challenging economy (2) a narrative that AI adoption should enable cutting junior roles. This could lead to companies that would anyway be doing layoffs choosing to lay off or not hire juniors, and replace with AI adoption.

To really test the implied theory that using AI enables cutting junior hiring, we need to see it in a better economy, in otherwise growing companies, or with some kind of control (though not sure how this would really be possible).

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greyb 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

>Unique to the current moment is that there are simultaneously (1) high interest rates and a challenging economy (2) a narrative that AI adoption should enable cutting junior roles.

I'm not disputing your point, but I'm curious: given that the main headline measures that we tend to see about the US economy right now involve the labour market. How do you establish the counterfactual?

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goalieca 3 days ago | parent [-]

When there are downturns in tech, companies squeeze out junior people. This happens often. After 2008 a whole cohort of top talent from software engineering schools were lucky to get lower paying QA jobs and only a few landed software development positions. There were chief economists for banks writing about the underemployed generation (generalized to all white collar) and how they can’t get started or have the same opportunities.

I think we might be seeing this now but headlines get more clicks with AI taking our jobs.

	▲	rsynnott 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I think we might be seeing this now but headlines get more clicks with AI taking our jobs. Note that last time round it took the media a year or so to _notice_; it didn't immediately become clear what was going on.

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dboreham 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Interest rates are not high. High-er than the post 2008 era yes. Not historically high though.

	▲	cheschire 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Why do people keep saying this? Sure interest rates were high a long time ago but right now today there are a crap load of people with low interest rate mortgages effectively trapped in their houses. When more than half of the population has a 5% or higher mortgage rate then you can start to say it’s not that high. https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/fhfas-national-mortgag...