27% to 9%: juniors only have their code left
At Anthropic, juniors fell from 27% to 9% of technical hires. When degrees no longer separate anyone, what a junior has built and shipped is the only argument they control.
At Anthropic, the share of juniors in technical hires has fallen from 27% to 9% since early 2025. The junior who makes it won't have a better CV. They'll have a repository.
It's not an isolated case. Using ADP payroll data, Brynjolfsson, Chandar and Chen measure employment of 22 to 25 year olds 19% below trend in jobs exposed to AI. No wave of layoffs, just fewer hires.
Anthropic acknowledges it itself: none of its internal measures address this slowdown.
When the entry point narrows, degrees and internships no longer separate anyone. Everyone has them. The only argument a junior really controls is what they have built and published.
Cursor says it plainly in its new grad posting: show us something you've already built and shipped.
On the employer side, I see two mistakes. Cutting entry-level roles because agents code fast, forgetting that tomorrow's seniors are today's juniors. And sorting the few remaining juniors by school, when some already have a maintained project, issues handled, real users.
Those juniors exist. They're just invisible on a one-page CV.
