How much has entry-level tech hiring declined?
According to SignalFire's 2025 State of Tech Talent Report, Big Tech firms reduced new graduate hiring by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023, and by more than 50% compared to pre-pandemic baselines in 2019. Startups reduced graduate recruitment by 11% year-on-year.
Answered in
The Senior Janitor and the Junior Death Spiral: How Big Tech Inverted the Software PyramidBig Tech cut new-grad hiring by 50% from pre-pandemic levels while senior demand surged. The apprenticeship pipeline is broken.
Read the full analysisOther questions this article answers
More ai & society questions
- What is the "Junior Death Spiral" in software engineering?
- Why are senior engineer postings booming if tech hiring is slow?
- What does the "diamond" organizational structure mean?
- Why are senior engineers burning out?
- What is embedded evaluation of an AI developer?
- Does developer funding automatically invalidate an AI evaluation?
- What should an AI assurance report identify?
- How many workers have been affected by AI-attributed layoffs in 2026?
Every answer on Crashtech is written by the editor of the article it comes from — never auto-summarised. Browse all answers or the AI & Society beat.