You have seen the headlines – young professionals increasingly have a hard time finding jobs and AI is to blame. The argument is easy to follow and certainly makes sense at first blush. A newly published paper begs to differ – what if it’s not AI (which is going through its own identity crisis at the moment, trying to prove its ROI), but remote work? The argument goes like this:
Early-career workers require more supervision than experienced hires, and build important skills, knowledge and social capital by observing and working alongside senior colleagues. Working from home adds friction to these processes, making entry-level workers more costly to bring on board in terms of time and resources and slowing their prospects for promotion. As such, the rise of remote work has worsened the trade-off for hiring entry-level workers, while leaving the calculus for senior hires unchanged.
If this proves to be true, you can expect a double-whammy hitting young professionals – as AI surely will have an additional effect on their job prospects.
