If you are beginning your professional journey, your supervisor may require more frequent office attendance than your more seasoned colleagues.

UK fintech firm Revolut announced that, beginning in 2027, interns and participants in its recent-graduate program must work from the office at least three days each week. The company will keep allowing other staff members to select remote or in-person arrangements.

Revolut explains the policy by highlighting the benefits of face-to-face learning for those at the start of their careers.

"You do not simply absorb knowledge when a manager issues instructions. You watch how colleagues approach their tasks," said Queenie Li, head of talent programs at the firm.

Most researchers concur that junior employees gain from in-person guidance and spontaneous knowledge sharing.

Yet while companies like Revolut separate policies for new and veteran workers, analysts continue to differ on how much remote work, AI, and additional elements influence decisions to hire fewer entry-level staff.

The issue matters because, for many years, college graduates in their early to mid-twenties usually posted lower unemployment than the broader labor force. That pattern has reversed. Since late 2018 these workers have frequently recorded higher jobless rates than the overall workforce, New York Federal Reserve data show.

The Remote-Work Factor

Peter John Lambert, a postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics and the University of Warwick, along with a colleague, determined that remote arrangements account for the hiring shift more convincingly than AI.

Lambert and Yannick Schindler of the UK's Ellison Institute of Technology reviewed hiring and job-posting records from multiple nations, including the United States, spanning the periods before and after ChatGPT and the pandemic-driven move to remote work. They observed that the portion of entry-level hires declined by as much as 29 percent in recent years, while senior-role hiring increased more than 5 percent.

One factor that blurs the distinction between AI and remote work, Lambert noted, is that both relate to desk-based roles that can be performed from any location.

Lambert argued that remote work is the stronger explanation because the slowdown in junior hiring began before generative-AI tools became widely available and capable of shaping staffing choices.

"Only when both influences are examined together does work-from-home show a clearer link than generative AI," Lambert said.

New York Fed researchers reached comparable findings about remote work. The arrangement complicates managers' ability to train and mentor newcomers, they concluded after studying an unnamed Fortune 500 company. When team members are dispersed, "feedback drops sharply."

"The reduction in feedback hits younger workers hardest, depriving them of guidance that supports growth," the researchers wrote.

Not all specialists view remote work as the sole cause. Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, listed remote setups, AI adoption, pandemic-related learning gaps, and a wider slowdown in hiring that has especially affected technology roles as plausible contributors. Bloom added that available data cannot yet isolate the precise weight of each factor.

The AI Factor

In separate research, Mark Ma, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Business, found that companies mentioning AI in job titles or descriptions cut overall hiring, with the steepest reductions occurring in early-career positions.

Ma interpreted the pattern as evidence that firms investing in AI or seeking AI-proficient staff require fewer junior employees.

"They are eliminating these junior roles because entry-level tasks can be more readily automated by AI," he said.

Ma noted that remote-work prevalence was higher several years ago than today, so recent graduates should have faced greater difficulty then. Instead, he observed, "the challenge is intensifying now."

Meanwhile, companies posting more remote positions actually increased junior hiring overall, Ma said.

"Those organizations are expanding more rapidly, so they must recruit additional staff," he said.

Supporting On-the-Job Learning

Among those who secure positions, many accept at least partial office attendance. A 2025 Gallup survey showed that only about one-quarter of Gen Z workers able to work remotely preferred doing so full time, compared with roughly one-third of older generations.

Hybrid models, in which employees spend part of their time in the office, can serve as an effective balance and help ensure early-career staff receive the mentorship they often seek, said Brad Hershbein, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

Remote workers, particularly those new to their fields, may miss subtle practices that boost productivity unless they observe them in person, he said.

"In some instances they become dissatisfied because they are not acquiring certain skills," Hershbein said.

Facilitating such learning shaped Revolut's decision to require office presence for interns and select early-career staff, Li said. The company intends to hire roughly 500 interns and graduate-program participants in 2027, an increase from about 300 this year.