Why Freezing Hiring For Entry-Level Jobs Is a Stupid Move

Initially published on Forbes Oct 8, 2025

Executives love efficiency. Faced with economic uncertainty and the promise of AI, many have decided the smartest place to cut is entry-level jobs. The logic seems sound: if technology can automate routine work, why carry headcount you don’t need?

Across industries, companies are quietly dialing back early-career hiring. Some call it prudence; others, a sign of efficiency. But cutting entry-level roles may look smart in the short term — yet it’s one of the most short-sighted decisions a leadership team can make. Efficiency without renewal is stagnation in disguise.

A Frozen Market

The August 2025 JOLTS data, as reported by Indeed’s Hiring Lab, paints the picture: 7.2 million job openings in August, but hiring stuck at 3.2%. The quits rate ticked down to 1.9%, and layoffs held at a low 1.1%. On the surface, the labor market looks stable. Beneath it, it’s stagnant—a “low-firing, low-hiring, low-churn” economy. That stagnation locks out people trying to get in and limits the movement that helps organizations evolve.

That frozen calm gives leaders an illusion of stability while quietly eroding their ability to adapt. Churn is what keeps both labor markets and companies alive. When no one new comes in, nothing new comes in either — no fresh thinking, no new skills, no energy to challenge the status quo.

The Next Generation Isn’t Waiting

While established companies are freezing early-career hiring, younger workers are already adapting — just not in ways that benefit those companies. Fiverr’s Next Gen of Work report finds that 67% of Gen Z now view “income stacking” as essential for financial security, and more than half believe traditional employment will eventually become obsolete. They’re not rejecting work — they’re redefining it.

As the report puts it, Gen Z is experiencing “single-paycheck panic.” They no longer trust a single employer to provide stability, so they’re creating multiple income streams, freelancing, and building skills on their own. Nearly 60% say they trust AI to handle parts of their work, and many already use it to brainstorm ideas, generate content, or improve creative output.

That shift should concern leaders. When early-career professionals stop trying to enter your organization and start building careers outside it, you don’t just lose potential hires — you lose the next generation of customers, innovators, and advocates. The future workforce is still learning, just not with you.

Apprenticeship Is How People Learn to Think

One of the biggest misconceptions about entry-level work is that it’s only about low-value tasks. But those tasks are how people learn the basics — not just how to do the work, but how to understand it. If no one gets the chance to run the early analyses, how will they later interpret the results? If no one gets to sit in on the meetings, how will they learn how decisions are made?

In a conversation on The Future of Less Work, Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s president and chief product officer, challenged this logic.

“There’s this narrative these days that says entry-level jobs are obsolete. AI is going to take all entry-level jobs. Therefore, we don’t need to hire any entry-level people. It’s bonkers. This makes no sense,” he said.

He reminded leaders that every generation learns, applies, and then teaches — and that cycle is what keeps organizations alive. Pausing entry-level hiring breaks that cycle, removing the mechanism through which companies renew capability and perspective. Without it, the leadership pipeline weakens, and even the most sophisticated AI can’t replace the human judgment that comes from understanding how systems work.

Those early roles are where employees learn not just the “what” of a job but the “why.” They’re where people build the muscle to spot when data doesn’t make sense, when results need interpretation, or when a process no longer fits its purpose. If no one learns the fundamentals, who will be able to tell when the machine is wrong?

Unlearning and the Role of Friction

But that’s not the only reason to hire entry-level talent. Unlearning has become as critical to performance as learning itself — and it rarely happens from inside the system. Without new voices, companies stop questioning old assumptions. A company without newcomers risks becoming an echo chamber. Early-career employees bring different lived experiences, digital instincts, and expectations about how work should feel. That generational mix is what keeps organizations connected to the world outside their own walls.

Patel describes why mixing experience and inexperience is vital:

“You need to have a combination of experience and inexperience in the workplace to really make magic happen because there are very important things that experience brings to the table. And then there are very important liabilities that experience brings to the table as well.”

While in many areas experience is a prerequisite for success, in others it can become an impediment — especially when decisions are guided by what worked before. Entry-level hires bring the perspective that helps organizations unlearn. They ask naïve questions that force veterans to re-examine assumptions. They spot inefficiencies others have learned to tolerate. They bring cultural and technological fluency that mirrors where customers are heading, not where the company has been.

A healthy organization depends on the tension between experience and curiosity. When you remove that tension, you remove your capacity to adapt.

The Real Cost of Cutting Corners

Freezing entry-level hiring may look efficient on a balance sheet. But efficiency without renewal is stagnation by another name. The organizations that will thrive in the age of AI are those that keep teaching, keep learning, and keep unlearning — starting with the people just beginning their careers.

The market may justify a pause. Technology may replace tasks. But the need for humans who can grow, question, and interpret hasn’t gone anywhere. Leaders who understand that will keep investing in early-career talent, not because it looks good on paper, but because it’s the only way to stay alive.

Efficiency at the cost of tomorrow’s capability isn’t strategy. It’s just stupid.