The problem though is that AI reduces the number of places to work at which will increase the competition between applicants. If some employers start doing this there will be applicants that will pay to get ahead. How big of an issue this becomes depends on how big of a competition AI will place on job seekers.

They used to, until many realized that there's no reason to train fresh grads if you can just poach then from another company after they've been trained for a while and if you train your own, they will get poached similarly by someone who wants to skip the training. They've been treating it as a zero sum game.

Increasingly few companies will hire fresh grads now. Naturally, that causes a shortage in people with experience. Not to worry, they're now complaining about the lack of potential employees with experience and demanding the government to invest money in advertising our country to third world devs and to let them hire foreigners more easily instead of having to look for people here first. So now part of my tax money goes to an initiative to make sure companies can keep not training young devs.

This had been brewing for years now and I'm disgusted.

then businesses decide to save money, by not hiring fresh grads, and expecting years of experience up front.