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The promise of high-paying tech careers is colliding with the harsh reality of artificial intelligence. Jobs long considered the “careers of the future” are now disappearing almost overnight, leaving graduates in computer science, software engineering, and programming scrambling for work.
Tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, IBM, and Google have unleashed AI models capable of performing complex tasks in seconds, and with them have come mass layoffs. Microsoft alone cut nearly 15,000 employees in the last three months, while IBM, Meta, and Google also shed thousands of positions. Roles once seen as a fast track to six-figure salaries and stock options are vanishing.
For years, the tech sector promised students quick success. “Starting salaries often topped $100,000, plus signing bonuses and stock options,” recalled Brad Smith, a former Microsoft executive, in 2012. That allure helped push U.S. computer science undergraduate enrollment to 170,000 last year, more than double the number in 2014.
Now, the job market looks very different. A New York Federal Reserve report shows unemployment among 22- to 27-year-old computer science graduates has jumped to 6.1%, with software engineering graduates at 7.5%, more than double the rate for graduates in fields like biology or art history.
“Just a few years ago, these graduates couldn’t turn down job offers,” said Jeff Forbes, former director of computer science programs at the U.S. National Science Foundation. “Now, they’re struggling to find a position anywhere.”
Many students and recent graduates report submitting applications to hundreds, or even thousands, of companies, government agencies, and nonprofits, desperate to land a role. The AI boom, once celebrated as a tool of progress, is now rewriting the rules for a generation of workers who expected their skills to guarantee a fast-track career.
*With information from Business Insider
