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The story
A thread on 5ch’s Newsokuvip board blew up over reports that AI is driving down new graduate hiring. The original poster claimed that roughly 20% of major companies plan to cut new grad hiring, arguing that young people are once again getting the short end of the stick, just as they did during the pandemic. In response, some pointed to Toshiba’s past hiring plan (which paired an increase in new graduate hires with layoffs) as a counterexample, while others noted that the hiring cuts are concentrated in liberal-arts office jobs, with STEM and IT fields still facing labor shortages. The thread became a tug-of-war between “our generation is being treated unfairly” and “you should get some real work experience before complaining,” exposing a clear generational divide.
What people said
First COVID, now this — how badly do they want to crush us young people's future?
There's a shortage of young workers, sure, but the only seats open are blue-collar jobs or small/mid-size companies.
No guaranteed future there.
Secure in this day and age?
Toshiba to lay off 1,400 employees aged 40+, while hiring 1,170 new grads it'll lay off 20 years from now
Toshiba announced its FY2020 hiring plan on the 12th. It plans to hire 1,170 new graduates for April 2021 entry, a 12% increase from the projected 1,040 hires in April 2020.
Under its mid-term management plan, the company is pursuing workforce reduction primarily through natural attrition; the new figure is 17% lower than the actual number hired in 2019. It's balancing staff reallocation toward growth areas like digital with ongoing restructuring.
So effectively a cut of 300 people.
Honestly, who cares about the middle-aged folks anyway.
I don't get what you mean.
Oh wait, I see — it's inconvenient for the middle-aged crowd, isn't it.
And there's the usual guy.
As long as you're not aiming too high, like an office job at some mega-corporation, you should be fine.
STEM positions are actually increasing.
That goes for frontline/manual jobs and IT too.
Anyway, it's just not right that our generation keeps getting treated unfairly.
We went through COVID too — if anything we should be getting preferential treatment.
Get good grades in junior high and get into a high school with a hensachi (standardized test score) of 60 or above.
In high school, cram at prep school nonstop and just barely squeak into a former Imperial University, a medical school, or a top private STEM program.
Study hard in college, finish grad school, and only then do you actually get to start.
The bar is way too high.
Can't speak for liberal arts majors, but in STEM even a grad degree from a regional public university can get you into a major manufacturer.
Even for liberal arts, if you prep properly for interviews, study hard, and build up your "gakuchika" (talking points about what you devoted yourself to as a student), you've got a shot even without a prestigious degree.
Grad school isn't even necessary.
Everything except the very first step can be managed with enough effort.
Companies only look at numbers and risk.
And the middle-aged crowd is desperately clinging to their seats.
Better to keep cycling the workforce.
So then what happens to the middle-aged folks?
By that logic you wouldn't need new grads either.
New grads take about three years of training before they're useful.
Only people in their 30s would survive.
Some small/mid-size companies that bet everything on AI cutting headcount will probably end up unable to actually run their operations and go under, but honestly, thinning the herd might be good for society overall.
I want to work at a big company though.
My image of small/mid-size companies is that they're full of middle-aged people who can't even use AI in the first place.
Just start with a part-time job first and see reality for yourself.
I do have a part-time job, but I don't want food service.
That's right.
Everyone's fed up with Gen Z right now —
people like you who only demand your rights while leaking your own personal info all over social media.
That's on the people your own age around you.
A soft generation that cries "abuse" or "harassment" at the drop of a hat, which just ends up highlighting their own declining skills and patience and makes everyone see you as a generation that's hard to deal with — that's the real problem.
They just want to lean back and bark orders.
They want an easy job.
you think subordinates would actually follow a boss like that? Huh, OP? Re: #109
I'm telling you this for your own good — go try a part-time job.
But I still think the real safe bet for the future is a management position at a big company.
Re: #126
Yeah, you're definitely getting influenced by something weird.
Social media and YouTube are full of flashy, glamorous stuff,
but that's less than 1% of how the real world actually works.
I get it now —
you've spent your whole life getting scolded, so you've grown to love having power.
That kind of job seems like an easy target for AI replacement, after all.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Toshiba hiring plan cited in the thread actually comes from a 2019 article reporting that the company would hire 1,170 new graduates for April 2021 entry while laying off roughly 1,400 employees aged 40 and over — a years-old case with no direct connection to AI-driven cuts to new grad hiring. Readers should note that applying it directly to the current AI-related debate is a bit of a mismatch. The thread also raised the point that the hiring cuts said to be occurring are concentrated in liberal-arts office and administrative roles, while STEM and IT fields continue to face labor shortages — meaning the headline “new grad hiring is declining” only captures part of the picture. A number of posts seemed designed to stoke generational conflict, but few were backed by concrete data, so this should be read with the understanding that the exchange was driven mainly by emotion rather than evidence.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Newsokuvip) thread “Apparently AI is cutting new grad hiring”.
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