IBM plans to sharply increase entry-level hiring this year — but the jobs themselves will not look like the ones employers filled two or three years ago. Chief Human Resources Officer Nickle LaMoreaux said the company has rewritten its entry-level job descriptions to shift focus away from tasks AI can automate and toward customer engagement, product development and AI oversight.

The move directly touches core people-process decisions: job architecture, skills requirements, screening criteria and how talent teams define "entry-level" at all. LaMoreaux, HR Executive's 2024 HR Executive of the Year, made the comments at Charter's Leading With AI Summit, and Axios reported them on Feb. 13.

"You have to rewrite every job," LaMoreaux said. Entry-level roles that powered the workforce two to three years ago can be altered or replaced by AI, she suggested. That framing puts the burden on HR leaders across industries to audit which tasks in their early-career roles AI can already handle — and what remains for humans to do.

The hiring data backs the shift

IBM's announcement lands alongside fresh market numbers. Job postings for AI-related roles increased more than 50% in January, and software developer positions requiring AI skills are growing at an even faster pace, according to data from ManpowerGroup's Experis division, which specializes in tech talent.

Overall IT postings rose 15% in January, and software developer postings climbed 18%, Bekir Atahan, vice president at Experis Services, told HR Executive in an email. "Companies are moving from early exploration to practical implementation, which is creating steady demand for multidisciplinary technologists," Atahan said.

An analysis of more than 7 million U.S. tech job postings by career site Dice and its data partner Lightcast reinforces the trend. AI Engineer postings grew 208% in 2025. Machine Learning Engineer roles rose 52%. All 50 of the most-posted tech job titles showed salary growth of 3% or higher.

Traditional roles contract

At the same time, conventional tech roles are shrinking. Software Development Engineer postings fell 16%, Java Developer declined 4%, and Business Systems Analyst dropped 10%, according to Dice data.

That split — AI-centric roles expanding while legacy technical titles contract — frames the central workforce-planning question for employers: not whether to hire, but what to hire for. For HR teams, the IBM example suggests entry-level pipelines built around automatable tasks may need redesign before volume hiring resumes, not after.

Even with high-profile layoffs in parts of the tech sector, Atahan noted, unemployment for core IT skills remains significantly below the national average.

Whether other large employers follow IBM's lead in rewriting — rather than simply cutting — entry-level work will shape how the early-career talent market develops through the rest of the year.