AI Blamed for Making it Harder for Coding Graduates to Find Jobs
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia- A bachelor’s degree was once considered a safe ticket to enter the job market. For computer science graduates in the United States, that assumption is starting to falter. In the last three years, the rate of full-time job absorption for computer science graduates has fallen sharply, in line with the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
A recent report by The Economist depicts the changes that are beginning to be felt at several American universities.
Final-year students now face a much colder job market compared to previous cohorts. Entry-level positions are decreasing, campus recruitment is shrinking, while companies are starting to rely on AI for basic technical jobs that used to be an entry point for new graduates.
Data from the Handshake student job search platform shows that job openings for students and recent graduates have fallen by 50% compared to their peak in 2022.
A survey of recent graduates also shows a bleak atmosphere. Less than 20% of graduates feel that now is a good time to look for decent jobs. That figure is the lowest in more than a decade.
AI is the main suspect in this change. More than half of companies say they have already considered replacing entry-level workers with AI technology. This concern is strongly felt among young people. A survey by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics found that more than 50% of young Americans see AI as a threat to their job prospects.
The fields most affected come from majors that have long been considered the most promising, namely computer science, computer engineering, and information science.
An analysis by The Economist using data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers shows that graduates from majors with the highest exposure to AI experienced a 6.6 percentage point decline in full-time job absorption during the 2022-2024 period.
In contrast, majors with low AI exposure, such as education, philosophy, and civil engineering, have only fallen by about 1.5 percentage points. The difference is quite large. This change emerged after the emergence of generative AI models such as ChatGPT at the end of 2022.
The Economist then updated the data for the 2025 cohort using information from 13 universities in the United States. The results show that the trend has not stopped. The rate of full-time jobs for computer science graduates has fallen from almost 70% to around 55% in just three years. Before the ChatGPT era, that figure was relatively stable.
Economists do not fully agree on the impact of AI on employment. A 2025 study by Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford University found that employment for young workers in sectors exposed to AI fell by 16% compared to other sectors. Software development is in the most affected category.
However, there is another study by Google economists, Zanna Iscenko and Fabien Curto Millet, which shows that the decline in job openings actually occurred for both junior and senior workers at the same time. They argue that the trend of weakening the technology job market has emerged before ChatGPT was launched.
Even so, the direction of change is beginning to be seen in the world of education. Data from the National Student Clearinghouse shows that the number of undergraduate students in computer science fell by 11% throughout 2025. The computer programming major, which is more focused on practical coding skills, fell even further, reaching 26%.
Changes in industry needs are also shifting the career patterns of computer science graduates. Coding activities are now increasingly assisted by AI. Companies are starting to look for graduates who are able to design systems, arrange software architecture, and understand technology integration more strategically.
Lana Yarosh, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, says that student anxiety is understandable. According to her, computer science has always changed rapidly over time. The difference is, this time the change is coming more aggressively and directly affecting the job market for new graduates.
This phenomenon is an important signal for the global education world. AI has not eliminated technology professions, but is starting to change the structure of entry-level jobs. The career path for coding graduates, which used to look straightforward, is now much more competitive.
CNBC Indonesia Research