Do Corporate Organizations Have an Ethical Responsibility to Hire Our Youth?
I have spent the past week in my home state of Texas, meeting with mentors, corporate leaders, and people I respect immensely. During each conversation, the topic of hiring trends was quicky brought to the forefront of discussion - both as a whole, and for early career professionals. The (near) universal opinion on the titled question is that we are failing our youth with current hiring practices.
Unemployment for young adults aged 18-24 has risen to 10.8%, as of December 2025. The unemployment number refers to those who are actively seeking to find work but are hitting a wall. This does not include those who are in a situation where they don’t have to seek and obtain employment.. Meaning those in college are not getting the opportunity to work. Employers of restaurants, grocery stores, and other standard job options for students state they can’t find workers. College students claim they can’t find jobs. Whose truth is to be believed?
The above unemployment statistic also means graduates are not being afforded job opportunities or even internships upon completing their respective degree programs, both of which are extremely affordable to employers. For the past three years, many of the young professionals I have spoken to are enduring arduous interview processes, including unreasonably long interview processes, case studies, and are even doing some of the work of the employer, all for “the chance” to receive a job INTERVIEW. Upon looking up the data, it backs up their claim and how they feel - with a 13% decline in job opportunities from 2022 - 2025 for fresh graduates, all under the guise of corporate efficiency.
Most companies will tell you that Artificial Intelligence has either replaced repeatable tasks often associated with junior-level work, or they are saving the money to implement technical solutions that will make the organization leaner and more efficient, improving shareholder value and improving their bottom line.
The New York Times reported that Amazon is anticipating the replacement of 600,000 jobs with AI Agents with plans to reach 75% company automation by 2033. Here is the article if you’d like to dive deeper: (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/inside-amazons-plans-to-replace-workers-with-robots.html)
Salesforce has reduced its customer support staff by more than 40%.
Google, Meta, Netflix, Intel, and many more have announced mass layoff strategies over the next decade due to AI infusion.
A SHRM article from December said: “Recently published research from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and Stanford University found evidence that the AI revolution is beginning to have a significant and disproportionate impact on entry-level workers in the U.S. labor market.” You can click the link to read more about Stanford’s research on the topic.
Which begs the questions - if it’s already difficult to land a job, how much more difficult will it be in the years to come? And who is responsible for those who need work?
If you were the CEO of a trillion-dollar company, such as Amazon, Google, Tesla, etc., would you feel an ethical obligation to company performance - or to human wellbeing? Is your allegiance to the bottom-line or to the social fabric?
Admittedly, robots and artificial intelligence will make you by-and-large a more efficient organization - they don’t require PTO, sick days, benefits, and they don’t tire over the course of a 12-hour shift. However, if people can’t make money, will they be able to afford the very products that companies use robots to make and ship?
I suspect we will see a surge in entrepreneurship, not because everyone wants to be a founder, but because there is no other choice. Some who have technical foresight will use AI to build companies that can change the world. Some will create companies simply because they aren’t afforded opportunities to join one that is already in existence.
No matter the cause, there is a deep, broken trust between Corporate America and our young professionals. The market has been historically cyclical. Tough hiring markets typically fade and candidates eventually emerge with a bevy of opportunities to choose between. However, with opportunities steadily declining due to AI adoption, I’m not sold on candidates having the chance to see what the other side of this labor market looks like.
I must ask - who’s responsibility is it to set these kids up for success? Does Corporate America have an ethical responsibility to hire and train these individuals? Do colleges and universities need to do more? Do parents need to better guide their children into this new way of life?
Most executives I’ve spoken with feel our youth is being failed. Do you agree with them?
Randall, we had a good conversation about this over lunch, and I don't think there's an easy answer. Do they have a responsibility to society at large? I think we'd all say not directly. But what about to the people they've employed and are now looking to lay off? That's a harder question. I would say that there is a much stronger responsibility there. If you have massive economic power, there is a bigger burden on you.
I'm not supporting just taxing companies to the nth degree, as that will just go to unrestricted coffers. If there's a better outplacement process than what exists today, it should be supported. Cynically, a corporation should want to be able to say they're doing their part. More genuinely, they should treat their employees the way they'd want to treat a member of their own family. That doesn't mean employing them unproductively forever, but you can't just hand people a check for two weeks' pay and a link to an outplacement that just helps them tweak their resumes and cuts them loose.
I think we're going to have to demand as a society what happens here. It's going to be a chaotic couple of years, and the better we handle this, the smoother things will go as a society.