CEOs Shift Hiring Away From Junior Roles

According to a global survey by consulting firm Oliver Wyman, more than 40% of chief executive officers say they plan to cut or reduce junior roles over the next one to two years, a share that reporting by Bloomberg and Fortune places at about 43%, up from 17% last year. The survey also finds roughly 30% of CEOs saying they are shifting hiring toward mid-level roles, compared with about 10% a year earlier, while only 17% say they plan to increase hiring of junior positions, per Oliver Wyman as reported by Gizmodo, Bloomberg, and Fortune.

Bloomberg, Fortune, Gizmodo, Yahoo (Bloomberg republish), and Bloomberg Law all cite the Oliver Wyman survey; Gizmodo and Bloomberg link the findings to a New York Fed report that the job market for 22-to-27-year-olds "deteriorated noticeably." Fed Chair Jerome Powell is quoted in coverage as saying AI might be partly to blame for weaker entry-level prospects. Fortune and Yahoo cite comments from John Romeo of the Oliver Wyman Forum and Helen Leis, global head of leadership and change at Oliver Wyman. Reporting also references academic work, including a Harvard-linked study showing firms that adopt generative AI have reduced junior-level positions and a November Stanford study finding young workers were 16% more likely to lose jobs in the most AI-exposed fields.

Industry observers have framed the reported shift as linked to the kinds of tasks generative AI and agentic assistants now handle. John Romeo is quoted saying, "I think the junior level is definitely finding it harder now to enter the workforce," and consultant Ravin Jesuthasan is quoted describing employer preferences for experience, noting that managers seek workers with judgment and problem-solving that AI cannot easily replicate. These points match broader academic findings that automation concentrates displacement pressure on routine tasks and entry-level roles while preserving roles that require tacit knowledge.

Companies adopting comparable automation historically reallocate headcount toward employees who supervise, validate, or integrate automated outputs. Observed patterns in similar transitions include temporary slowdowns in entry-level hiring, a heavier reliance on mid-career hires for domain expertise, and increased emphasis on internal reskilling programs. Such shifts can compress early-career development pipelines and raise future talent-supply risks for organizations that reduce entry-level intake now.

• •Track follow-up releases from Oliver Wyman for methodology details and regional breakdowns that could change how results are interpreted.
• •Watch hiring announcements from major employers cited in coverage; Fortune notes International Business Machines Corp. reported plans to increase entry-level hiring in the US, an outlier worth monitoring.
• •Monitor academic replications: the Harvard-linked and Stanford studies referenced in reporting will matter for causal claims about AI adoption and youth employment trends.

If the pattern reported by Oliver Wyman holds, talent acquisition teams, university recruiters, and learning-and-development functions will need to reassess pipeline timing, mentoring capacity, and onboarding practices. Industry stakeholders should also follow whether firms that reduce entry-level hiring later face shortages of mid-level employees with firm-specific knowledge, a dynamic highlighted in the coverage by Oliver Wyman representatives.