Tech industry grad hiring crashes 46% as bots do junior work (www.theregister.com)

UK graduate hiring in the tech sector has plunged: the Institute of Student Employers reports a 46% drop in graduate roles year-on-year and projects a further 53% fall, while overall graduate hiring is down 8% — the first decline since the 2020 pandemic slump. Employers say generative AI is already doing many of the routine tasks juniors used to handle (basic coding, data wrangling, and other repetitive digital work), so firms are hiring fewer entry-level roles and favoring experienced hires. Big vendors’ recent layoffs and redeployments (e.g., Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft) underscore a broader shift toward automation-driven efficiency. For the AI/ML community this is a pivotal inflection point: short-term productivity gains from models are shrinking early-career training opportunities and risking the future talent pipeline. The ISE survey also shows AI isn’t yet ubiquitous in recruitment — only 15% use AI in gamified assessments and many employers still rely on automated (non-AI) testing — but 79% are redesigning hiring processes to guard against AI-related issues (including suspected candidate cheating). The implication: expect rising demand for mid/senior-level engineers, credential inflation, and pressure on education-to-employment pathways unless organizations invest in structured upskilling or rethink how AI augments rather than replaces junior roles.