A University of Warwick CAGE release says a study by Peter John Lambert and Yannick Schindler found that declining early-career hiring across the UK, U.S., Canada and Australia is more closely tied to the rise of remote and hybrid work than to AI exposure. Warwick says the study used 243 million employer-employee matches and 407 million online job postings from 2017 to 2025, and that by 2025 the share of new hires going to early-career workers had fallen between 8% and 11% below 2019 levels across the four countries.
The same Warwick release says occupations most exposed to AI were often the same occupations that shifted most toward remote and hybrid work, and that AI’s apparent effect largely disappears when remote-work exposure is included. Axios reported that remote work is a better explanation than AI for weaker junior hiring, and Axios also reported that New York Fed economists estimate remote work accounts for roughly 64% of the rise in youth unemployment since the pandemic.
Axios further reports that under-29 college graduate unemployment rose from 3.1% before the pandemic to 3.7% since 2022, while unemployment for more experienced college graduates edged down. Taken together, the reporting points to a labor-market pattern in which the early-career segment looks more exposed than older graduates, but the supplied sources do not identify a single employer, industry, or country that explains the full shift.
What the Warwick study says
Warwick’s CAGE page says the study examined hiring patterns across the UK, U.S., Canada and Australia and used two large datasets: 243 million employer-employee matches and 407 million online job postings. The release says the authors compared AI exposure with remote and hybrid work exposure and found remote and hybrid work, not AI exposure alone, was the stronger predictor once both factors were considered.
The release’s own wording matters here. It does not say AI had no relationship to hiring at all; it says AI’s apparent effect largely disappears when remote-work exposure is included. That is a narrower claim, and the supplied sources do not go further than that. They also do not identify which occupations were most exposed to AI by name, only that the occupations most exposed to AI were often the same occupations that shifted most toward remote and hybrid work.
Warwick also says early-career hiring fell between 8% and 11% below 2019 levels by 2025 across the four countries in the study. The supplied sources do not break that range down by country, occupation, firm size, or degree type, so those details should not be assumed from the aggregate figure alone.
What Axios adds
Axios reported that the career-ladder problem may be better explained by remote work than by AI. In that report, Axios says under-29 college graduate unemployment rose from 3.1% before the pandemic to 3.7% since 2022, while unemployment for more experienced college graduates edged down. Axios also reports that New York Fed economists estimate remote work accounts for roughly 64% of the rise in youth unemployment since the pandemic.
Those are distinct claims from the Warwick release and should stay distinct. The Warwick material describes a cross-country hiring study and a comparison of remote-work and AI exposure. Axios describes unemployment patterns and attributes the 64% estimate to New York Fed economists. The supplied sources do not say the Warwick authors made that 64% estimate, and they do not say the New York Fed estimate was derived from the same data or model used by Warwick.
Axios’ framing is useful because it shows the reporting is not limited to one paper’s abstract. But the supplied sources still do not establish a universal conclusion that remote work is the only driver of junior-hiring declines. They support a narrower statement: in the research described by Warwick and summarized by Axios, remote-work exposure appears to explain more of the pattern than AI exposure does.
Who is affected, according to the sources
The people singled out in the supplied evidence are early-career workers, under-29 college graduates, and more experienced college graduates. Warwick says early-career hiring was down relative to 2019 by 2025 across the four countries in its study. Axios says under-29 college graduate unemployment increased from 3.1% before the pandemic to 3.7% since 2022, while more experienced college graduate unemployment edged down. The sources do not provide a broader occupational breakdown of who is most affected beyond the mention of occupations exposed to AI and those that shifted toward remote and hybrid work.
That matters for interpretation. A headline about AI can imply substitution by software or automation, but the supplied sources point instead to work organization and location as the stronger correlate in the data they describe. The research bundle does not say employers stopped hiring juniors because of AI, and it does not say remote work alone caused every observed change. It says remote and hybrid work are linked more strongly to the decline in early-career hiring once the model includes both factors.
What to watch next
The main thing to watch is whether other datasets reproduce the same pattern with different methods. The supplied sources do not identify follow-up studies, a company response, or a policy change. They also do not give a timetable for any new release, so any next-step expectation should remain limited to further research or reporting rather than a stated schedule.
Another point to watch is how employers interpret the finding. Warwick’s release says the implications concern early-career hiring in a remote and hybrid-work environment, while Axios notes that the New York Fed economists’ estimate ties remote work to a large share of the rise in youth unemployment since the pandemic. The sources do not say whether employers will alter internship design, mentoring, onboarding, or hybrid policies, so those possible responses remain outside the supplied evidence.
For now, the reporting supports a cautious reading: the weaker junior-hiring picture in these sources is not best described as an AI story alone. It is a remote-work story in which AI exposure may overlap with the same occupations, but remote and hybrid work appear to do more of the explanatory work in the cited research.
Why this matters
If the weaker early-career labor market is driven more by remote and hybrid work than by AI exposure, then the policy and management debate shifts with it. The Warwick release itself presents the result as evidence that remote-work design is linked to declining early-career hiring, and Axios connects the same theme to rising youth unemployment. The supplied sources do not say what remedies would follow, but they do suggest that any response limited to AI risk alone would miss part of the pattern described in the reporting.
That is the narrow, evidence-based takeaway from the bundle: across four countries, and across the datasets Warwick cites, the apparent AI effect on junior hiring is weaker once remote-work exposure is included. The exact size of the change, the country-by-country mix, and the occupational mechanisms are not fully spelled out in the supplied materials, so those remain open questions rather than settled facts.
Sources
- New research shows that remote work, not AI, is linked to declining early-career hiring — University of Warwick CAGE
- The career ladder's disappearing rung — Axios