The first rung of tech’s ladder is breaking. Entry-level job postings for computer and mathematical occupations in New York City fell 49 percent from 2022 to 2025, marking the largest decline among career fields in the city.
The numbers describe more than a rough hiring cycle. Entry-level postings overall have fallen off a cliff, and the first rung of the ladder in tech is under pressure. Recent college graduates and early professionals now face the hardest part of the labor market’s shift toward generative AI, with fewer openings available for workers still building experience.
That creates a particularly ugly problem for anyone trying to enter the industry: employers want experience, but the jobs that once supplied it are disappearing. As Jon Bowles put it, “those positions for young people with limited experience are harder to come by and there is intense competition.” The old career ladder has not vanished, but someone has removed several rungs.
AI Is A Possible Cause, Not A Complete Explanation
AI is a possible cause of the decline in entry-level tech jobs. Companies may be using technology to handle work that once gave junior employees a place to start, though the available data identify the connection without proving that AI caused the entire 49 percent drop.
The timing still matters. New York City entry-level tech postings fell from 2022 through 2025, as generative AI moved from a research topic into ordinary workplace planning. When the first jobs to disappear sit at the bottom of the ladder, workers lose more than openings; they lose a route toward the experience employers demand later.
The pressure is not limited to people without degrees. Gallup’s poll, conducted from August 3 through August 24, 2026, found that 27 percent of U.S. workers were concerned about losing their jobs because of technology—a new high since 2017 and a 7 percentage-point increase from last year.
That concern now exceeds traditional worries such as layoffs and wage cuts. Gallup described the anxiety as “far from pervasive,” but said concern about technology making jobs obsolete continues to rise and now surpasses several job worries that typically shift with the economy.
Technology Anxiety Has Reached Younger Workers
The change is clearest among younger workers. Concern about technology displacing jobs among workers ages 18 to 44 rose from 10 percent in 2017 to 34 percent in 2026, while concern among workers ages 45 and older moved from 16 percent to 19 percent over the same period.
College graduates show a similar shift. Concern about tech displacement among college graduates rose from 8 percent in 2021 to 20 percent in 2023, and the accompanying figures list 25 percent of workers with college degrees as concerned about displacement compared with 29 percent of workers without college degrees. The broader claim lists 27 percent for workers with college degrees, so the supplied figures do not fully agree—but none of them suggest comfort.
Across the full workforce, concern about losing a job to technology stood at 13 percent in 2017 before reaching 27 percent in 2026. Gallup said the increase is especially notable among younger and college-educated workers, suggesting that technological disruption is reaching groups that may once have felt more protected from workplace upheaval.
That is the real warning in New York’s entry-level data. If AI reduces the number of junior roles while fear rises among the people seeking them, the labor market is not just changing the tasks inside jobs; it is narrowing the entrance to entire careers.
Based on
- AI Really Is Eviscerating Entry-Level Jobs, New Data Shows — futurism.com
- NYC Tech Job Market Sees 49% Decline in Entry-Level Positions – Business Insider — businessinsider.com
- AI Era Coincides With Weak Pay and Employment for College Graduates – Bloomberg — bloomberg.com
- Poll: More than a quarter of workers fear losing jobs to technology – UPI.com — upi.com
