What happens to the talent pipeline if AI takes all the entry-level jobs?

The entry-level job appears to be an endangered species.

Case in point: Earlier this year, a survey of nearly 1,000 business leaders by U.S. career site Resume.org found that one in five companies have stopped hiring for those get-your-foot-in-the-door gigs. Nearly half (47 per cent) expect to eliminate entry level hiring entirely by 2027.

The primary reason? Artificial intelligence, according to two-thirds of respondents. That’s hardly a surprise – AI’s ability to automate tedious tasks and process reams of data is perfectly suited to taking over the jobs most people do at the start of their careers.

While the potential gains are obvious – lower staffing costs, increased efficiency – what happens to the talent pipeline when you cut it off at the source?

Put another way, where are the managers, specialists or executives of the future going to come from when AI got that internship or no-experience-required role instead? It’s too soon to tell, but the warning signs are there, experts say.

“AI can either widen the talent gap or it can close it,” says Agapi Gessesse, CEO of CILAR, a national nonprofit that aims to equip Canadians with future work skills, including AI. “The difference is whether we invest in people as intentionally as we’re investing in the actual technology.”

Ms. Gessesse says she has seen this issue play out in real time with some of the retailers that CILAR works with, many of whom are replacing human cashiers with self-service checkouts or using robots to do inventory rather than a person. She points out that front-line workers have “conversational” context and understanding that can’t be captured anywhere, such as a store clerk who knows that people constantly ask for certain items in a store.

That kind of hard-won, hands-on experience is often invaluable further up the career ladder, she says. “You don’t just go from graduating to becoming a supervisor.”

As AI becomes a bigger part of processes in myriad industries, employers need to equip their employees with the skills to be part of that adoption, Ms. Gessesse says. She would like to see more companies take the money that they’re making with AI and re-invest a portion into upskilling their workforce, rather than laying people off and figuring out the pipeline later.

“There are things that you can automate using AI, and that’s phenomenal, but you still need judgment and common sense,” she says. “If you’re not teaching a human how to analyze what AI has provided or adapt it to whatever your business need is, you’ve tried to solve a problem but created two.”

‘The existential dread is prevalent’

There’s also a less obvious impact of AI on talent pipelines: The chilling effect that can happen when young people avoid a career path altogether if they think they’ll be replaced by a robot in the next decade anyway.

That’s something Garth Sheriff, a Toronto-based consultant who trains chartered professional accountants (CPAs) on AI, is already noticing within the accounting industry.

“Traditionally, students are trained by the firm, and you move up levels very systematically,” he says. “That process can be ten years or more, but it’s fairly predictable based on performance and retention.”

However, enrolments in the CPA designation are falling, both globally and in Canada, leading to a looming “accountant shortage” that’s already making hiring challenging. The reasons for this decline are multifactorial, says Mr. Sheriff, but AI is a big one.

He explains that there are many “systematic” tasks that are typically relegated to entry level CPAs, such as getting information from an auditing client or filling out spreadsheets. Those are the kinds of tasks that are most likely to be replaced by an AI tool, and that’s something young people are acutely aware of.

Basically, the things students are learning in high school accounting class or their university program could very well be handled by an AI by the time they graduate.

“The existential dread is prevalent,” Mr. Sheriff says. “Students can see this happening. That side of the pipeline is affected now.”

At the same time, AI is going to create a need for more experienced CPAs down the line, he says.

“With AI, the need for CPAs is going to be on a trust level,” says Mr. Sheriff. “There’s still a fiduciary duty that CPAs have in the marketplace that is very powerful.” That’s why a dearth of entry-level jobs now will be so detrimental to the accounting profession in the future.

A move to soft skills

Koula Vasilopoulos, a Calgary-based senior managing director at recruitment agency Robert Half, has worked in recruitment for nearly 29 years and has seen many types of automation transform workplaces. From her perspective, the difference with AI is that it’s changing the way entry level recruits are being trained. They are being taught soft skills – critical thinking, problem-solving, people skills – rather than technical ones.

“Individuals are working on things that are less transactional. They’re working their brains differently because, while AI is a productivity tool, it’s not a replacement for human expertise,” she says.

For example, some clerical roles are redundant now because it’s a function that’s easily automated. “Instead of working on a specific task, you now need people checking on the accuracy [and] refining the deliverable.”

It’s not that the mailroom-to-CEO trajectory is gone forever, Ms. Vasilopoulos says. It’s that young workers will need to focus on the new skills – emotional intelligence, communication, creativity – that employers are increasingly looking for.

“I think it’s just the universe shifting to allow for this transformation and evolution that we’re going through,” she says. “I personally think it’s really exciting.”

Ms. Gessesse says she has also seen a shift as more people accumulate experience outside of the traditional workplace structure through side hustles and hobbies. She gives the example of people who had no marketing background who are now content creators.

“All these tools are available, and people are now making a living doing that, and their experience is based off what they’re producing and showing people online,” she says. Perhaps the pipeline itself is changing alongside the nature of work.

That said, Ms. Gessesse warns against wholesale replacement of entry level roles with AI. She gives the example of her own vibe coding – basically building a website with AI – versus the expertise of her husband, who is an IT professional.

“When something’s not working, he can look at the code and be like, ‘AI messed up.’ But what happens when there are fewer people like him who actually know the language, who know the source of truth?” she says. “There will be no one in the loop, and we’ll lose control.”