Entry-level white-collar hiring is drying up across tech, law, and finance, which is bad for young graduates and eventually bad for the companies doing the cutting.

• Over 477,000 US jobs have been cut so far in 2026, the worst pace in about two decades outside the 2009 crash.
• AI has been the top stated reason for layoffs six months running, with tech alone accounting for nearly a third of all cuts.
• The damage is concentrated at the bottom: employment for 22-to-25-year-olds in AI-exposed jobs is down 16%, and entry-level coding roles are down 20%.
• Firms are not firing juniors so much as never posting the jobs — law, consulting, and banking entry roles have fallen 35% since 2023.
• Workers now take home a record-low share of what they produce, and the top 10% of earners drive almost half of all consumer spending.

Outlook: Even if interest rates and remote work share the blame, the junior rung is already gone, and without it there is no pipeline to produce the senior workers companies will need.