[The View] The Era of One Million Young People Without Jobs... Restoring the 'Career' Ladder Is Essential

Companies Now Demand Senior-Level Skills from Entry-Level Employees

Who Will Fill the Gap Left by the Loss of 'First Work Experiences'?

Recently, the global accounting firm PwC analyzed more than 1 billion job postings and captured an intriguing shift: the disappearance of the career ladder. Abilities once thought to require years of experience—such as strategic thinking and judgment—are now becoming basic requirements for entry-level positions. In essence, artificial intelligence (AI) is replacing tasks previously handled by juniors before it even begins to substitute senior employees. Put simply, AI is replacing first jobs and the very start of a career.

Traditionally, companies have nurtured their talent by assigning entry-level workers relatively minor tasks, such as conducting research, organizing data, drafting reports, and simple programming. By repeating these smaller tasks and correcting mistakes along the way, newcomers gained an understanding of the context behind their assignments and learned through experience—gradually developing the judgment and expertise to become professionals. However, the first tasks slated for automation are now precisely these "career-building tasks," or "tasks aimed at learning." For companies, cutting back on entry-level hiring might lead to higher immediate productivity, but for society as a whole, the very process of training people into experts is disappearing. Failing to secure a first job means more than just losing income—it means never even beginning a career.

Governments have proposed income security measures like basic income. However, income alone cannot replace the meaning that work brings. Work is not merely a means of earning money; it is a process through which people form relationships with others and sense their own growth and progress. For young people, in particular, their first job marks the start of both their income and the acquisition of career skills and expertise. The Ministry of Employment and Labor has proposed a plan to nurture people who use AI effectively. In 2026, it plans to establish an AI Campus, invest about 130 billion won, and train 10,000 AI professionals, including AI engineers and AI application developers.

Yet these policies continue to miss the essential question. It is not "How many people who use AI well should be trained?" but rather, "In an era when AI replaces entry-level work, where and how will newcomers and young people gain experience and grow into professionals?" Teaching coding or AI applications for a few more months does not foster the judgment, management skills, problem-definition ability, or sense of responsibility that seniors have developed. Such abilities are accumulated by being given small tasks in real work, failing, receiving feedback, and then being entrusted with more challenging tasks. In other words, experience is required. If companies are beginning to demand senior-level capabilities from entry-level workers, policies must go beyond last-minute skill-building or job training.

Both vocational training and university education must now shift to provide ladders for building careers. For this, it is necessary to more actively integrate internships and field projects—which offer firsthand experience with projects and foundational work—into university curricula. Since companies may see internships as a cost in the short term, the government should share in the expense and risk to enable businesses to give young people initial work experience. Likewise, universities should not treat field experience merely as job preparation, but should incorporate it as an integral part of formal education and provide active support. For instance, programs such as internship semesters or project-based semesters should be expanded, and new curricula should be designed to organically connect theory with practical experience, offering young people their critical first opportunity to build a career—all without undermining the foundation of academic learning.

The era of leaving young people to find internships and accumulate experience on their own is coming to an end. The gap left by companies no longer providing "first experiences" must now be filled by governments, universities, and society together. Only then will the ladder that allows juniors to become seniors remain intact, even in the age of AI.

Nakyung Kyung, Professor of Business Administration at Sungkyunkwan University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.