Key points
- The scale of technology layoffs (hundreds of thousands of jobs) is contributing to fewer jobs, slower hiring, and a reshaping of early-career employment patterns.
- For college graduates and soon-to-be graduates, this means that training and entry-level options are not as plentiful as they were in previous years.
Students now face a more challenging path into the technology sector, requiring sharper AI skills and broader research across industries and small businesses.
Tech companies spend the middle of the decade rewriting their hiring rules. After several years of record expansion, the industry has reversed course, shedding employees at a level not seen since the early dot-com era. The influence reaches far beyond mid-career engineers or managers; The most significant consequences fall on people who have not yet started their careers.
The background is amazing. In 2025 so far, tech companies have cut more than 200,000 jobs worldwide, according to a report. TrueUp industry tracker. Large employers, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, have cut headcount frequently, sometimes more than once a year, citing tighter budgets and the need to redirect resources to AI infrastructure and product development.
These changes shift the hiring process to a level well below the executive level. It takes a long time to train and qualify employees at the beginning of their career. When budgets tighten, these investments tend to be the first to disappear. As the industry directs more money toward artificial intelligence systems that automate routine tasks, the rationale for filling new large classrooms is beginning to erode.
This has a profound impact on the entry-level job market and even internships for college students.
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A sharp decline in entry-level employment
One of the most visible changes is the shrinking presence of young workers at big tech companies. Across some of the largest publicly traded technology companiesThe share of employees in their early to mid-20s fell from 15% in early 2023 to about 7% by mid-2025. It’s a dramatic shift in an industry that once relied on annual waves of emerging talent.
This decline reflects the decline in employment and the influx of experienced workers into the labor market. Thousands of mid-career engineers and product professionals are now competing for roles previously reserved for recent graduates. As a result, companies continue to advertise entry-level positions, but often give them to people with larger resumes, reducing the practical number of actual entry-level seats.
Automation is also taking over work that used to fall to entry-level employees. A A study from the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University I studied roles with high exposure to AI, including software development, customer service, and clerical support. Employment of workers ages 22 to 25 in these jobs declined by 13% compared to lower-risk occupations.
The results indicate that early-career workers tolerate greater disruption than their older peers, whose employment rates have increased over the same period.
Training periods may also be shortened
Internships, once a pathway for college graduates seeking full-time tech jobs, are also shrinking. Big tech companies have canceled or cut back Trainee cohorts are in 2024 and 2025, and companies that continue to offer programs often scale back.
While there is no national database that tracks internship numbers with the same precision as full-time positions, hiring managers and university career centers have reported a notable shrinkage. Some companies that previously accepted hundreds of trainees per course are now accepting a fraction of their previous totals. Others have turned to short virtual projects that require less financial commitment.
The result is a bottleneck at the first stage of the career path. Students who previously relied on internships as a stepping stone to a job now face a more uncertain path. Without this early exposure, new graduates can struggle to differentiate themselves in a job market already full of experienced applicants.
Finding entry-level jobs can be difficult
This shift is reshaping expectations among graduating seniors. A college student who expected to have multiple interviews at major tech companies a few years ago now finds that many of those opportunities no longer exist. Entry-level roles are fewer, the hiring bar is higher, and application pools include workers with years of experience.
Early-career job seekers are also navigating a sector that is undergoing a technological transformation unparalleled in recent memory. Companies want early-career employees who can work with AI tools from day one, whether they’re building them or applying them across business functions.
This means that the traditional value of general computing and science credentials has weakened in favor of candidates who have spent time on automation, infrastructure, or industry-specific problems.
The result is a more rigorous transition from the classroom to professional life, especially for students from institutions that do not have strong recruitment channels. It is common for recent graduates to find that their job searches take several months, whereas just a few years ago it was almost instantaneous.
What college students can focus on
Students entering the workforce can adapt by heading into fields where automation is unlikely to replace their contributions. Proficiency in using AI tools has gone from a differentiator to an expectation in many teams. This includes creating projects that demonstrate how candidates use AI to speed up research or code review, as well as deeper experience integrating models, cloud platforms, security, or data systems.
Another shift involves expanding beyond the big tech companies that once dominated early-career hiring. Industries like finance, consulting, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare are absorbing the talent released during tech layoffs, and are still hiring people early in their careers. Some medium-sized companies and startups, although smaller, continue to bring in graduates because they need hands-on shareholders who want to grow with the company.
Many career counselors now encourage students to broaden their scope from day one. Long-form research has become the norm, and graduates benefit from building projects, participating in open source work, or taking on contract roles while continuing to interview. These steps indicate readiness, even in a job market where opportunities are limited.
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