Junior salaries have been in free fall for years. New study suggests the impact of AI is not so obvious

We have been seeing headlines for a couple of years about the destruction that AI is doing to employment junior. And the usual reply: no, it’s an excuse, that companies cut when rates rise and AI is only a convenient justification. Both readings are partly right. That’s just the problem.

The study. The Stanford Digital Economy Lab has been analyzing actual payrolls. Not surveys or estimates: payrolls. Published a study at the end of 2025 but keeps updated dashboard with much more recent data.

The result. Employment of those aged 22 to 25 in professions highly exposed to AI has fallen since the end of 2022, just when ChatGPT arrived, and lately at a rate of 4% annually. In those over 30, in those same professions, it increases. Coinbase charged 14% of its workforce citing AI as the cause. Salesforce stopped hiring juniors last year.

The nuance. The same study adds a very interesting nuance: the effect does not appear when the AI ​​helps someone do their job, but when it does it for them.

• Write code, answer ticketswrite a first draft: that’s where hiring goes down.
• Review, verify, support a decision: it remains there.

It does not replace human work in general. It replaces the boring job you start with when you are a youngster.

It’s time to stop and agree with those who disagree.. In 2001, relocation to India was blamed for a slowdown that actually came from interest rates: when rates fell, hiring returned, and the debate about India remained unresolved. The OECD points in the same direction in your report this month: Unemployment among young graduates was already rising before ChatGPT existed.

Coexistence? The two things may coexist. But even if only part of the fall is done by the AI, that part attacks the step that no one else can replace. The intern who answers wrong tickets for six months or do well needing help you’re not wasting your time: you’re learning to fail cheaply in a controlled environment.

Removing that step doesn’t fire anyone today. In ten years there will be a lack of people senior and no one will be able to explain why, because by then they will have forgotten that the bottom step disappeared long ago.

Featured image | Xataka

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