The Broken Rung — Why Entry-Level Jobs Are Vanishing

The Broken Rung — Why Entry-Level Jobs Are Vanishing

“The degree used to be a golden ticket. Today, it may be a debt-laden detour, especially if it trains you only to perform tasks that AI now handles faster and more cost-effectively. Don’t chase prestige; chase adaptability. Choose learning that cultivates judgment, creativity, and human insight; skills no algorithm can replicate. Your future isn’t in competing with machines, but in becoming unmistakably, unautomatably you.” Qwen

It sounds distant, until you look at what’s happening now.

Big corporations are laying off thousands, even as they post record profits. However, the cuts are disproportionately affecting lower-level roles, including entry-level positions in writing, data processing, junior engineering, basic design, and customer support.

The broken rung in the career ladder is vanishing, and the consequence is that entire classes of future professionals may never get their start.

The Layoff Storm You’re Already In

Here’s what’s happening right now:

  • Accenture has eliminated more than 11,000 jobs in the past three months, with more cuts planned for employees who cannot be retrained for AI-augmented roles (FT).

  • Amazon’s AWS cut hundreds of jobs in July, targeting roles that support customers (Reuters).

  • Microsoft trimmed ~6,000 jobs (≈3% of its workforce), restructuring toward AI-first priorities (AP News).

  • ExxonMobil is cutting ~2,000 jobs globally to optimise costs (Barron’s).

  • Scale AI — ironically, an AI company — cut 14% of staff (~200 roles) after over-expansion (The Verge).

  • In Australia, Commonwealth Bank axed 283 jobs, admitting those roles were offshored to India (News.com.au).

Across the tech sector alone, over 22,000 workers have already been laid off in the first half of 2025 across 81 companies.

These cuts aren’t random. They’re hitting roles that deal with rote cognitive tasks — junior coding, content generation, data cleanup, QA, Tier-1 customer service.

Why Entry-Level Roles Are First in the Firing Line

  1. Task substitutability – Entry-level work involves repetitive tasks such as drafting, summarising, filling spreadsheets, and basic testing. AI can now accomplish this 4.7 times more efficiently and 76% faster.

  2. Low switching risk – Firing juniors carries less knowledge loss and less resistance than firing seniors.

  3. Rapid ROI – Cut ten juniors at $80k each, and the company saves nearly a million. One AI license can replace all of them.

  4. Retraining vs. replacement – Cheaper to swap a role for an AI agent than to reskill a fresh graduate.

  5. Pipeline erosion – Without entry roles, tomorrow’s talent pipeline collapses.

This is what LinkedIn execs call the “broken rung”: the bottom step of the career ladder is gone.

The Human Reality

  • Alice, a fresh grad expecting to land a junior writing role, discovers the ladder has already been pulled away. Companies outsource content to AI or contractors.

  • Ben, a junior engineer, is laid off because his “glue work” — tests, error logging, boilerplate code — is automated. The team above him keeps going.

These are not hypotheticals. This is already happening.

What You Can Do: The AI Career Audit

The broken rung is real, but you don’t have to wait for HR to tap you on the shoulder.

👉 I’ve prepared a free AI Career Audit Prompt you can run against your own resume.

It will:

  • Flag which of your tasks/functions are most vulnerable in the next 3–6 months.

  • Assign each one a risk score based on current AI metrics (cost, speed, error rates).

  • Generate a counter-strategy to pivot you from being replaced to directing AI.

Download it here → My Full Career Audit Prompt

AI is the impending Tsunami; this is your early warning system. Don’t wait until it’s too late.