In the past year, the number of jobs for young specialists in the British technology sector has plummeted by 46%, with a further decline of 53% forecasted, reports The Register, citing statistics from the Institute of Student Employment.
The culprit behind such drastic changes in the labor market is artificial intelligence, which is already performing basic-level tasks that were previously entrusted to young specialists, including routine coding and data analysis tasks. Companies still need technical specialists, but they are currently hiring mainly experienced employees and are not training newcomers.
The volume of hiring graduates has decreased by 8% year-on-year — the only stronger decline in this indicator was in 2020, when it fell by 12%. Currently, the technology and pharmaceutical sectors have been hit the hardest.
The most in-demand professions among young specialists in the labor market are those related to IT, digital technologies, and AI — vacancies in these areas are available at 46% of organizations. Notably, the involvement of AI in the hiring process remains relatively insignificant, even though more than half of employers use automation tools. AI is more commonly used where tests are presented to candidates in a game format, but even here, the level of its implementation is only 15%.
AI has already forced 79% of employers to change their hiring procedures — some are already prepared for candidates to try to deceive them and seek hints from chatbots, and only 15% of employers have never identified or suspected candidates of attempting to deceive them in this way.
This trend creates a vicious cycle in the labor market: graduates cannot secure their first position to gain work experience in their field — this means that in the next five years, the number of mid-level specialists will decrease. Companies are trying to achieve short-term efficiency gains and are paying for it with a long-term talent pool — and the ones who suffer are young specialists.
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