AI Poised to Tilt Job Market Leverage Toward Older Workers

Ah, another survey for the pile. Oliver Wyman polled CEOs and discovered that over 40% of them plan to gut junior roles within the next two years. Because nothing says "forward-thinking" like clearing out the entry-level talent pipeline while screeching about an AI skills gap. These same executives will no doubt bemoan the lack of young blood in five years, right after they've finished congratulating themselves on this visionary "restructuring."

The logic, apparently, is that AI can handle the grunt work, so why pay a junior when you can have a senior who knows how to prompt? This assumes seniors want to do data entry, but fine. The survey cheerfully suggests this will "tilt job market leverage toward older workers." Hooray for the over-50s, who now get to fight over a shrinking pool of senior roles while the generation below them can't even get a foot in the door.

What the survey doesn't mention is what happens when those senior workers retire. At that point, the company will have no juniors to promote, no institutional knowledge, and a workforce that's been hollowed out from the bottom. But hey, the next quarter's margins are looking great. Oliver Wyman gets to sell another round of consulting, and CEOs get to feel like they're "leveraging AI." Everybody wins, except, you know, the people who will be doing the actual work in a decade.