We're running out of junior people

We are running out of junior people. Here's why that matters.

Walk into most advertisings agencies today and you'll notice something: everyone looks... experienced. The 20-somethings who used to fill the junior roles? They're barely 6.5% of the workforce now in advertising and PR, down from over 10% just five years ago.

Behind that number is something bigger happening—we're losing an entire generation of people who should be starting their careers right now. Fewer fresh voices, fewer people learning the basics, and a much thinner pipeline of future leaders.

Sure, budgets are tight and AI is handling the routine stuff. But the cost of skipping this whole layer of people? We'll pay for it later when we realize nobody knows how things actually work.

What "basic" work actually teaches you

When I started out, my first few years were filled with tasks that looked simple on paper. I dug through endless image folders, learned how to pick the right shot, visited printers to understand how colors and textures really work, spent hours doing market research that felt mind-numbing.

None of it was glamorous. But it gave me something you can't get from a tutorial: judgment. How to work with specialists, how to spot quality in the details, when to trust your gut versus when to defer to expertise.

Now AI can select images, match colors, and summarize research. Which makes me wonder: Where do people learn these judgment calls today?

The numbers back up the concern. Adweek found that internships in marketing and advertising have been dropping since 2022. The summer hiring spike that used to reach 125% above January levels? Now it's barely 40%. Staff positions are down 11% while manager roles stay steady. We're literally losing the bottom of the pyramid.

Meanwhile, internship applications per role have surged—more people competing for fewer opportunities.

Some companies are betting the other way

Not everyone's following this trend. Duolingo's CEO recently doubled down on hiring new grads while other companies shut down their internship programs. His reasoning? Fresh talent brings ideas that aren't limited by "what's impossible," plus they actually understand digital culture in ways that matter.

Ravi Kumar at Cognizant points out that AI can actually make room for more junior hires because the technical bar gets lower—but only if we structure these jobs to teach decision-making, not just tool operation. AI boosted productivity for junior developers by 37%, way more than for senior staff.

Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase says the real shortage isn't people—it's skills. But the most valuable skills won't just be technical. They'll be the harder stuff: creativity, critical thinking, knowing when something feels off even when you can't explain why.

The thing about AI and conformity

Here's what I keep noticing: AI gives you exactly what you ask for, with perfect efficiency. But the best work happens when someone says "Wait, are we solving the wrong problem here?"

Big companies have spent decades rewarding people who follow instructions and punishing those who push back. They say they want "critical thinkers," but their systems often shut them down.

AI makes following directions cheap and easy. What's getting more valuable is the opposite—challenging the brief, spotting blind spots, asking uncomfortable questions.

And that's exactly what you learn in those first few years of doing the work yourself. Not just how to use the tools, but when not to use them.

Building the bottom rung again

For companies, this means creating real entry points—work that AI can help with but can't replace entirely. Work that teaches nuance and adaptability.

For young professionals, it means using your newness as an advantage. Be the most curious person in the room. Go deeper than the first answer. Ask "Why" when everyone else nods along.

Here's what I keep coming back to: If nobody's learning the basics now, Who's going to know how to handle the complex stuff later? We can automate tasks, but we can't automate the small lessons that come from actually doing the work.

If we don't make space for those lessons—and the people who need to learn them—the real shortage won't be technical skills.

It'll be people who actually know what they're doing.