Work

120,136US job cuts blamed on AI in 2026 so far, 21% of all announced cuts. You are being replaced, and payroll data shows the jobs vanishing fastest are the ones you start your career in.

Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas (September 2026)

Harrison Spanner · 4 Oct 2026 · 7 min read

Rows of empty grey office cubicles under fluorescent lights — The desks where careers used to start. Photo: Dan4th Nicholas, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you’re starting out, or your kids are, this one is about you. Employers have stopped being shy about it: AI is now one of the most common reasons US companies give for cutting jobs. The hardest numbers are American, and Australia is earlier on the same path: the Commonwealth Bank has already tried swapping call centre staff for a voice bot. The experienced mostly keep their jobs. The bottom rung of the career ladder is the one being sawn off.

120,136US job cuts blamed on AI from January to September 2026

19%employment gap for 22–25 year olds in the most AI-exposed jobs

4%of Australian workers are in jobs highly exposed to AI automation

How it works

How AI removes the first rung

You don’t have to be fired to lose out. The second step does the damage.

Based on Stanford Digital Economy Lab (2026) and Jobs and Skills Australia (2025)

Stanford researchers tracking US payroll records found employment for 22–25 year olds in the most AI-exposed jobs is now about 19% below young workers in less-exposed jobs. Older workers in the same jobs show no such gap. The researchers say they can’t yet prove AI is the cause, but the gap holds even after stripping out tech firms and interest-rate effects. Where AI does the task instead of helping with it, the young are falling behind.

Amazon's glass Spheres and office towers at its Seattle headquarters, seen from street level — Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle. Photo: Buiobuione, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The companies say it themselves

Amazon cut 16,000 corporate jobs in January. Officially it was about removing “bureaucracy”. But chief executive Andy Jassy had already told staff in June 2025: “As we roll out more generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done.”
Block cut 4,000 jobs, nearly 1/2 its staff. Jack Dorsey pointed to the AI tools the company is “creating and using”. Salesforce said its AI agents had cut support cases.
AI is the top reason for US job cuts this year. It led every other reason for five months straight, with a record 38,579 cuts in May alone. All of 2025 had 54,836. It has slipped down the monthly list since August, but it is still No.1 for the year.
Australian employers are trying it too, and getting caught. The Commonwealth Bank cut 45 call centre roles for an AI voice bot, then reversed it and apologised when call volumes rose. The Finance Sector Union said CBA had been “caught out trying to dress up job cuts as innovation.”

AI isn’t only sacking people. It’s quietly stopping the hiring of the new.

The gap is getting wider

A year ago the Stanford gap for young workers in exposed jobs was 15%. With data to June 2026, it is 19%. In jobs where AI mostly helps workers rather than replaces them, employment is flat or rising.

Employment gap for 22–25 year olds in the most AI-exposed jobs

How far below trend, compared with young workers in less-exposed jobs

July 202515%

June 202619%

Older workers in the same jobs show no gap.

Source: Stanford Digital Economy Lab (2026)

Australia’s own jobs agency sees the same pattern coming. Jobs and Skills Australia found administrative roles, entry-level workers and jobs mostly held by women are the most exposed to automation, led by office clerks, receptionists, bookkeepers, and sales, marketing and programming roles. Only 4% of workers are highly exposed today, and JSA says there’s no sign yet of widespread entry-level losses here. But it names entry-level and admin workers as the most exposed, and the US is showing where that leads.

Be sceptical of the bosses too. Challenger notes that “naming AI in a layoff announcement can win over investors”, and Yale’s Budget Lab finds no clear sign yet of AI in the overall US jobs data. Some “AI cuts” are ordinary cost cuts with better marketing. But the gap for young workers in exposed jobs shows up either way.

A young apprentice electrician in a white hard hat, safety glasses and hi-vis vest on a construction site, with a co-worker behind him — An apprentice electrician on a bridge job. Photo: Oregon Department of Transportation, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The fix: work with your hands

AI is software. It can write the email, but it can’t wire a switchboard, frame a roof or fix a burst pipe. The work that’s hardest to automate is physical, on site, and different every job. It’s also where Australia is short of people. The government’s own projections put construction labourers, nurses, cleaners and hospitality staff among the jobs set to grow most by 2050. A trade means you’re paid while you learn, and you finish with a licence that a chatbot can’t hold.

116,700extra construction workers needed to build the 1.2 million homes Australia has promised by 2029

32,000more electricians needed to hit the 2030 renewables target, far more than are being trained

$10,000paid to eligible housing construction apprentices, on top of their wages

Your way into a trade

Four steps from a desk to a job AI can’t do.

Sources: DEWR; SafeWork SA; Prime Minister of Australia

To find your trade and a boss

Australian Apprenticeships

The government’s Apprenticeship Support Network helps you work out which trade suits you, find an employer and sign the paperwork. Builders, sparkies and plumbers are crying out for apprentices: BuildSkills Australia says the housing target alone needs 116,700 more workers.

Find a provider →

To get started, free

Free TAFE pre-apprenticeship

Free TAFE is now permanent under the Free TAFE Act 2025, with priority for 17 to 24 year olds and people out of work. The government funded 15,000 extra construction places and about 5,000 pre-apprenticeship places for 2025–26, and permanent Free TAFE places continue from 2027. A pre-apprenticeship teaches you the basics and shows an employer you’re serious. Do your White Card too: you need it to work on a building site.

Find Free TAFE →

To get paid more while you learn

The $10,000 apprentice payment

Full-time apprentices who started in housing construction on or after 1 July 2025 can get $10,000 on top of their wages: $2,000 at 6, 12, 24 and 36 months, and on completion. Clean energy trades, including electricians, are covered too. Check your trade is on the priority list before you sign.

Check eligibility →

Do this today

1. Pick the trade you’d actually enjoy. It isn’t easy: about 4 in 10 construction apprentices don’t finish. Electrician, carpenter, plumber, bricklayer, plasterer: housing and energy need all of them.
2. Book a chat with an Apprenticeship Support Network provider. They’ll match you to an employer.
3. Enrol in a Free TAFE pre-apprenticeship and get your White Card, so you’re ready to start on site.

The same few companies building AI already profit from your data. Read what Big Tech actually knows about you.

Go deeper

Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick. A Wharton professor on how to work alongside AI instead of being replaced by it.
A World Without Work by Daniel Susskind. An Oxford economist on what happens when machines can do more of the work.

What to make of it

Many of the companies cutting jobs are telling you, in their own announcements, that AI is the reason. Some of that is spin for investors. But the hiring data on young workers isn’t spin, and it’s getting worse. Nobody is going to protect your first rung for you. The rung AI can’t saw off is the one you climb with your hands. Pick a trade and start this week.

Sources

Amazon links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

This article is general information, not career or financial advice. Figures are the latest available at the time of writing and change quickly.