It's not a blip: why it’s time to take another look at entry-level job posts

Young workers are sitting at 9.2 percent unemployment right now. The national rate is 4.3 percent. So more than double, and it’s not a blip. Youth unemployment tends to run about twice the overall rate even in good times.

Sit with that for a second. The people with the least cushion, the newest to the workforce, the ones carrying student debt, first apartments, and no savings buffer, are the ones having the hardest time getting in the door.

Some of this is the usual last-in-line dynamic that shows up whenever hiring tightens. But some of it is us. Entry-level roles quietly grew three years of “required” experience. AI started handling the tasks we used to hand to juniors as a way to learn the ropes. The bottom rung of a lot of career ladders got sawed off, and then we wondered why young people can’t climb.

I don’t have an easy fix. But I have a question for anyone who hires. Look at your last few entry-level postings. Did they require experience, or did we just add it because everyone does? Every unnecessary requirement on a junior role is a door held shut on someone who has no other way in.

The talent pipeline everyone claims to worry about starts here, with the first job. If we make that first job impossible to get, we don’t get to act surprised about the shortage later.