Leaders are split on how AI will change the entry-level labor market: while some warn of a jobs armageddon, others believe it’ll usher in a golden era of new opportunities for young workers. Some employers like Meta and PwC have already reeled back their hiring of fresh-faced graduates—but Accenture’s global chief diversity officer, Beck Bailey, says the consulting giant is only ramping up its acquisition of Gen Z talent.
“We’ve made a commitment to hire more entry-level people this year than we did last year,” Bailey recently said at Fortune’s Workplace Innovation Summit. “Our reasoning is that if you think about the folks who are graduating college this year, they entered college with ChatGPT…We want them in our workforce now to help us.”
The executive overseeing an employee population of around 786,000 strong is looking to add more college graduates to the company’s massive headcount, echoing Accenture CEO Julie Sweet’s remarks from last month. And the consulting giant isn’t alone in that thinking; other employers like Ford and Nvidia have also expressed the importance of keeping early-career workers in the pipeline.
Bailey appeared on a panel with Indeed Chief Revenue Officer Maggie Hulce and University of Michigan Dean of Innovation Jeff DeGraff. The panel, focused on future-proofing your org chart, was hosted by Indeed.
