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IBM triples entry-level hires for 2026 despite AI adoption, bucking industry trends — Chief HR officer says that AI can do most entry-level jobs, but work still requires a human touch
IBM is tripling its entry-level hiring in the U.S. in 2026, according to a new report. This stands in stark contrast to many of the country’s largest firms, especially in the tech world, which have conducted large-scale layoffs, often for the claimed reasons of AI efficiency savings or pivoting the company's focus towards AI. IBM is explicit about its reasoning for the new roles, too, citing the importance of human-to-human interaction and the AI nativism of younger workers. As a result, IBM is bucking the wider industry trend, Bloomberg reports.
Speaking at the 2026 Leading with AI summit in New York last week, IBM’s chief human resources officer, Nickle LaMoreaux, described the false economy of layoffs in a world of AI-driven innovation and advancement. While firing those replaced by AI and reducing entry-level hiring may drive cost savings in the near term, LaMoreaux said that risked creating a longer-term scarcity of mid-level managers and experienced workers within the organization.
Without the ability to develop their own experienced employees, this would force companies like IBM to look outward in a more costly search for professionalism and expertise. New hires poached from other companies bring their own institutionalized baggage and can take longer to get up to speed on internal working practices and culture than those who have been fostered internally.
But it’s not just the case that IBM is restarting its standard hiring practices or doubling up on old job listings. It’s aware that AI has genuinely undercut the kind of positions that entry-level developers would take on. That doesn’t make those workers redundant, it just makes the work they’re needed for a little different, and arguably more specialized to what humans are particularly good at: Interfacing with other humans.
“The entry-level jobs that you had two to three years ago, AI can do most of them,” LaMoreaux explained to attendees at the Charter AI Summit. “So, if you’re going to convince your business leaders that you need to make this investment, then you need to be able to show the real value these individuals can bring now. And that has to be through totally different jobs.”
“Yes, it’s for all these jobs that we’re being told AI can do,” she said, but that workers would focus on the human-aspect of them.
That means entry-level developers are spending some time coding with AI tool assistance, but more time working with customers to define what it is they want from a coding project. New HR hires now work to refine responses from AI chatbots that answer a greater number of enquiries than HR workers could themselves. The entry-level positions are middle managers in their own right, acting as a go-between for the AI frontline and higher-level decision makers.
The wider trends
(Image credit: IBM)
The past few years have seen an increasing number of layoffs across major industries. Although there are a growing number of studies which suggest that the reason these layoffs may be more “AI washing,” than AI innovation, it’s clear that AI is causing workplace changes. Entry-level positions, particularly in programming, that were once dominated by new graduates and younger workers who can then develop into positions of capabilities and authority, are being squeezed by new AI capabilities. That’s reduced the number of opportunities, which threatens to collapse the supply chain of new, experienced workers that every industry needs to continue developing and innovating.
What’s encouraging for entry-level workers, and for anyone who’s felt the spectre of AI looming over their employment security, is that LaMoreaux isn’t an island of thought in this case. People in leadership positions are also taking note.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told CNN in October, “People are talking about either layoffs or freezing hiring, but I actually want to say that we are the opposite. I expect we are probably going to hire more people out of college over the next 12 months than we have in the past few years, so you’re going to see that.”
Others see the AI nativism of young and inexperienced new hires as one of their greatest strengths, too.
“It’s like they’re biking in the Tour de France and the rest of us still have training wheels,” said Melanie Rosenwasser, chief people officer at cloud storage platform Dropbox, at the Leading in AI summit. “Honestly, that’s how much they’re lapping us in proficiency.”
Dropbox also announced an expansion of its internship and graduate training programs by 25% in 2026 to make the most of younger workers’ capabilities when it comes to using AI.
Catering to these younger, hungry workers has been a core part of Dropbox’s strategy. For the past five years, it’s prioritized a “Virtual First” culture, which encourages and facilitates remote work, allowing it to focus on talent and capability over physical location.
While that’s not something all companies can do, it’s a real advantage for Dropbox and shows it in stark contrast to several other firms which have made a point of driving workers back into centralized offices since the pandemic. Mozilla, Hubspot, Crowdstrike, Zapier, and Spotify are all doing the same, which could give them a real competitive advantage for remote-first workers who have known little else over the past half-decade.
The uncertain future of labor
There’s an emerging dichotomy in the future of employment, and it seems increasingly split down the line between those working to develop AI and those looking to take advantage of it. Those driving AI forward the most: Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, are all claiming the world of work is going to come crashing down, and even though none of them are making any profit with AI, they want the world to believe that AI is going to be everything, with no room for the human workers it’s replacing.
But those without a profit incentive to make AI everything seem to feel differently. It’s not AI that’s now generating new productivity, its experienced workers with AI. For companies like IBM and Dropbox, AI isn’t going to make work redundant; it’s going to change it, like many automation drives throughout the history of work.
The companies that see humans as the face of work for the future are making sure they have those people on hand to realize it. If the major tech firms are going to fire everyone and not hire as many skilled graduates, there are other companies more than happy to attract them without AI fear-mongering and easier employment options, like remote-first workplaces.
In a rush to automate everything, the smartest bet still seems to be on people, though the result of that dice roll still has yet to play out.
Jon Martindale is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. For the past 20 years, he's been writing about PC components, emerging technologies, and the latest software advances. His deep and broad journalistic experience gives him unique insights into the most exciting technology trends of today and tomorrow.
