Remote Work, Not AI, May Be Behind the Drop in Junior Hiring

AOL.com reported Tuesday that remote work, not artificial intelligence, may be the primary force behind a sustained drop in entry-level hiring across major English-speaking economies.

The Research Behind the Claim

Two academics examined résumé data covering 243 million new hires. They also reviewed more than 407 million job postings spanning the US, UK, Canada, and Australia from 2017 through 2025. Peter John Lambert, a postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics, and Yannick Schindler, a senior research economist at the Ellison Institute of Technology, led the analysis.

Their central finding challenges a widely held assumption. When both AI exposure and remote-work exposure were tested simultaneously, the AI effect weakened sharply. It often became statistically insignificant. The remote-work effect held firm in every model the researchers ran.

Why WFH Complicates Entry-Level Investment

The paper argues the problem is organizational, not technological. Managing and training junior staff becomes harder when teams are distributed. Supervisors face higher monitoring costs. On-the-job learning slows. Those frictions, the researchers wrote, erode the business case for hiring and developing early-career talent.

By 2025, the researchers estimate that highly remote-friendly occupations saw junior hiring fall roughly 4 to 5 percentage points more than roles requiring in-person attendance. US entry-level hiring is now down 29% from pre-pandemic levels, a steep drop that spans all four countries studied.

The AI Narrative Gets Complicated

AI skeptics of the prevailing story note a data overlap problem. The jobs most exposed to tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot — software developers, consultants, accountants, data scientists — are also the jobs most commonly done from home. Earlier studies may have attributed to AI what was really a remote-work effect.

That said, the researchers are careful not to absolve AI entirely. They acknowledge that generative tools are already pushing some grunt work formerly assigned to juniors up the seniority ladder. They simply say it may be too soon to conclude AI is replacing large numbers of early-career workers at scale.

A Warning Sign in Graduate Unemployment

Federal data already hints at distress in the graduate labor market. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recorded a 5.7% unemployment rate for recent college graduates in the first quarter of 2026. That compares with 4.2% for the broader workforce — a meaningful and widening gap.

The researchers conclude that companies may need to rethink mentorship and training structures. Hybrid arrangements that work well for experienced employees may systematically disadvantage the workers who need the most guidance.

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