Young workers trying to land their first jobs and build early careers are bearing the brunt of AI's spread, the Bank of Korea said Tuesday. More than nine in 10 youth jobs lost over the past four years disappeared in sectors with high AI exposure. Rising unemployment among college graduates and growing attrition among young workers already employed are shaking the entry-level "career ladder," the central bank found.
The Bank of Korea's Employment Research Team under its Research Department published the findings Tuesday in a report titled "Is AI to Blame for the Youth Employment Slump? The Changing Career Ladder and Policy Challenges."
The number of jobs held by young people aged 15 to 29 fell by 285,000 between June 2022 and June 2026, according to the report. Of those, 268,000 — or 94.0% — were lost in sectors with high AI exposure.
By sector, the information services industry recorded the steepest drop in youth employment, down 31.4%. Publishing (-27.4%), computer programming, systems integration and management (-16.6%), and professional services (-11.6%) followed.
Over the same period, employment among workers in their 50s rose by 230,000. Some 173,000 of those gains — 75.2% — came in high-AI-exposure sectors, underscoring how the employment impact of AI's spread has played out very differently across age groups.
Oh Sam-il, head of the Bank of Korea's Employment Research Team, said AI tends to take over or replace routine, entry-level tasks — the kind young workers are most likely to be doing — making them disproportionately vulnerable. Middle-aged and older workers, by contrast, handle tasks that draw on deep organizational knowledge and years of accumulated expertise, making them harder for AI to replace, he said.
How AI is used also shapes its employment impact. Sectors where AI is deployed for "automation" — taking over tasks outright — saw steeper declines in youth employment. In sectors where AI is used for "augmentation," such as drafting or verification support, the same pattern of job losses was far less pronounced.
Unemployment has also worsened more sharply among highly educated young people. Using educational attainment as a proxy for AI exposure, the Bank of Korea found that the average unemployment rate among college-graduate youth stood at 7.0% after ChatGPT's launch in November 2022 — 1.6 percentage points higher than the 5.4% rate for those with a two-year college degree or less.
Before ChatGPT's release — from January 2019 to October 2022 — the unemployment rates for the two groups were nearly identical, at 8.2% and 8.0%, respectively.
Attrition among young workers already in the workforce has also increased. Excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period, a comparison of January 2016–December 2019 with July 2022–June 2026 shows that the average monthly outflow of young workers from high-AI-exposure sectors rose roughly 32%, from 3,700 to 4,900. Over the same span, the average monthly inflow fell about 11%, from 32,600 to 29,100.
The Bank of Korea cautioned, however, against attributing the recent youth employment slump entirely to AI. Multiple structural shifts have likely been at work simultaneously, including post-COVID sectoral labor adjustments, a hiring culture that favors experienced workers, and the spread of remote work. The bank also noted that as companies restructure their operations and organizations around AI, new roles and labor demand could emerge.
Rather than simply preserving existing entry-level positions, the report recommended building a new career ladder that allows young people to gain experience and skills by working with AI. Young people tend to adapt quickly to new technology and are well-positioned to leverage AI, the report said, meaning they could become the primary long-term beneficiaries if AI takes hold as a tool that complements learning and work.
attom@heraldcorp.com
