The expectations are high. $2.5 trillion was spent globally on AI development and infrastructure in the past year. It is a disruptive technology that has triggered a full-on anxiety attack for just about everyone, especially for people in the labor market—whether you are already employed or hoping to start your career.
People are terrified they will lose their jobs to algorithms or never find work to begin with. The noise is constant: AI is replacing people, and no one is safe.
Really? Is that true? Will people be permanently replaced by AI? Will it infect every element of our lives and livelihoods?
Yes, AI is a disruptive technology roiling the labor market, and yes, people are being laid off and replaced because of it—but people are also still getting jobs. Even in the worst economy, companies hire.
And no, it is not a waste to go to college because AI is replacing everyone and everything. It is a waste only if you do not develop a career plan early and monitor the news and adjust to changes that will inevitably occur.
If you believe there are no jobs out there, you are going to give yourself permission not to look. That is a guaranteed recipe for a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you do not look for work you will not find a job. If you really want a job, you have to look at your career differently. Your career is something you must actively manage; it is not a one-time setup. You have to maintain constant awareness of what is growing and what is contracting. Something is always going to come along and change the rules. The question is: Are you resilient, and are you flexible? Can you reinvent yourself?
The Current Scapegoat
A multitude of forces are impacting the labor market right now, but AI is drowning them all out as the ultimate culprit. For tech firms, AI serves as a convenient excuse to lay off workers, hoping to slash budgets and eliminate the need for salaries, benefits, pensions, 401(k)s, and payroll taxes. In many cases the same companies that are laying off workers are hiring. They are unwilling to spend the time and money training their current workers. For jobseekers, it is a convenient excuse to give up: Why bother looking if there are no jobs?
I have watched this script play out over and over again. Social, political, economic, and technological shifts have disrupted the labor market many times before. What has changed is the velocity. Change now happens more rapidly, more visibly, and the impact is intensely felt.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the acceleration of computerization, automation, the dot-com boom, digitalization, offshoring, mergers, downsizing, and geopolitical shocks hit the labor market hard.
Today, AI is the latest driver of change branded as a "job killer." Or is it?
In reality, a heavy wave of economic uncertainty is converging - driven by tariffs, political instability, war, chaos in global oil production, inflation, and shifting unemployment.
AI reminds me of how real flying seemed to my daughter at age four. Obsessed with Peter Pan, she genuinely believed she could fly. I happened to walk past the sliding glass door and saw her climbing onto a chair she had dragged to the edge of our apartment balcony, preparing to launch herself into the air. The danger was shockingly real. I pulled her off the chair and explained that only Peter Pan could fly.
Maybe we need to be pulled away from the balcony before jumping to conclusions about flying with AI. The capabilities of AI are real and dangerous in many ways, but it has hardly proven to be a wholesale job killer.
Perspectives from the Front Lines
James Sathre, a software engineer with 18 years of experience in the game and feature film industries, knows firsthand how deeply AI impacts tech. After a layoff, he attended a meetup with game development colleagues. When someone casually asked about his skills and job history, it turned out they had an unposted need for someone with his background. He got the job.
Yes, the network works. Why take the risk of hiring an unknown? Employers would way rather hire someone referred by a current employee. This is the best way into most tech firms.
James describes the reckless rush toward AI automation like this:
"AI is like racing a motorcycle on the LA freeway at top speed, weaving in and out, without a helmet in rush hour traffic. It can go really bad… AI makes everything go fast without guard rails. When something goes bad it goes really bad and it is often too late to fix it. There is no margin for error using AI to replace software engineers. People want to go as fast as possible so they set up 'agents' like software engineers, not thinking about all the 'edge cases'—i.e., use cases you didn't think of. AI doesn't know what not to do if you only tell it what to do without listing every possible rule that exists."
James points to recent cautionary tales:
- The CISA Breach: An automated AI process published highly sensitive government information from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), leaving federal infrastructure data exposed for roughly six months. A GitGuardian researcher, Guillaume Valadon, exposed credentials to highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and internal CISA systems.
- PocketOS Data Loss: A software company for car rental agencies gave AI full access to their production database. AI Cursor decided the cleanest solution was to delete everything and start over—without backing it up. PocketOS suffered catastrophic data loss.
AI is not human. It does not have good judgment. Humans with judgment are required.
Jazz Burney, a Senior Account Executive with Google, echoes those reservations. While acknowledging that AI enables “faster research, sharper proposals, and instant follow-up,” he emphasizes what it fundamentally lacks: “The ability to read what isn't being said and respond like a human.” His advice to professionals is clear: Never let technology replace your judgment, your instincts, or your ability to sit across from someone in a hard moment and lead.
The Reality of the Market
If you are a recent graduate, the current landscape feels brutal. The unemployment rate for recent grads sits at 5.7%, up from 3.6% in 2022 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). For computer science graduates, it is 7.0%, and for computer engineering, it is 7.8%—among the highest rates reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Yet people are getting jobs.
I frequently encounter discouraged job seekers who have been out of work for a year or two. They feel they have done everything right, holding degrees from top universities in sought-after majors, yet they are met with silence. Almost all tell me they have submitted hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes with zero job offers.
Looking for work is the hardest job you will ever do. It takes drive, discipline, and determination. Finding a job takes an average of 3 to 6 months and requires 40 to 60 hours per week of doing the right things. Do you know what the right things are?
Following the pandemic, tech companies hired like their hair was on fire, leading workers to expect effortless employment. The recalibration began when companies realized they were overstaffed and wrongstaffed. Highly skilled talent was cut, and entry-level positions plummeted. Compounding this, the federal government shed 348,219 workers through quits, layoffs, and retirements—an 80.8% increase in departures compared to previous baselines (Pew Research Center).
Job Search Methods that Work
Keeping it a Secret and Not asking for help is a bad idea. It can be embarrassing and demoralizing when you lose your job or can't find a job after graduation. So you keep it a secret. After a while you stop looking. These are the worst things you can do when looking for work. Most people get their jobs through friends, family, neighbors, former professors and teachers or even casual acquaintances met on buses or in local professional meetings and job fairs.
80% of the jobs are never posted. Yet people spend most, if not all of their time applying through job search engines.
You cannot just machine-gun stock resumes into the digital void and expect a career job to happen. Rarely do I talk with someone who has gotten their job from an application they put into Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, FlexJobs, Handshake etc. People default to this because it feels easy, but it is actually the most ineffective way to land a job. They are good places to get ideas and to build a list of companies to research and decide if you are interested in applying directly on the company site.
You want to connect with the people doing the hiring using your network. Even the most sheltered person has a network.
You need a targeted resume for each company showing your knowledge, skills, interest and work history. Yes, the internship, lifeguarding job or food service you held can show you know work safety protocol and that you know how to show up at work on time and ready to work.
There was a graduating engineering student in one of my classes who announced at Thanksgiving dinner that he wanted to work in the Aerospace industry. His sister, an ICU nurse in Seattle a few weeks later, had a patient who was a manager for Boeing who hired her brother without an interview. It was the least he could after she cared for him and helped him back to health…
And the new grad I worked with who thought his professors didn’t remember him but after sending each of them a focused and detailed email (citing how he knew them, what his grade was in their class, and what his goals were) requesting they serve as his references and listing his preferred companies and why he thought he was qualified. Every single professor remembered him and thought highly of him even though all his classes were on Zoom because of the pandemic… Turned out one of them worked at the #1 company on his list - Google - he was referred by that very professor and got the job after applying unsuccessfully 4 times on his own…
Finally, there was a colleague of a friend who shared at work that her husband had lost his job at Apple. The friend told her husband, who raced cars with a guy who happened worked at Apple managing a team doing the same thing in another department at Apple. The connection was made and the job was offered within a week!
Giving Up is not an option
So many people surrender in frustration, assuming there are simply no jobs.
I remember a construction management graduate who walked into my office lamenting, "There are no jobs." I said, "Then our job is done—right?" He replied, "Nooooo!"
"Ok—then we agree that jobs are out there. You just have to find them." I sent him out to track down every active construction site in town and talk directly to the person in the trailer wearing khaki pants and a hardhat. A few days later, he returned with multiple offers, stressed only by having to choose between them.
A tough problem to have.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, the anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence is real, but the panic is misplaced. AI is a powerful tool, a disruptive force, and occasionally a catastrophic hazard when deployed without human oversight, but it is not an insurmountable wall blocking you from a career.
The labor market will continue to shift, evolve, and create economic storms, just as it has through every technological revolution of the past. The difference between those who stay stranded and those who find their footing comes down to agency. Do not let technology substitute for your judgment, do not hide behind a digital wall of endless random resume blasts, and above all, do not give up before you begin. Step away from the balcony, put in the hard hours, and go find your work.
You got this!
Cici Mattiuzzi is the Author of The Serious Job Seeker and the founding director (emeritus) of the Career Services Office of the CSUS College of Engineering and Computer Science.