AI Puts Southeast Asia’s Graduate Jobs Under Pressure as Entry-Level Roles Change

‘I’m terrified’: AI comes for Southeast Asia’s graduate jobs

Artificial intelligence is already beginning to scythe through the jobs market as young people prepare to enter the workforce, with the bottom rung of the career ladder starting to buckle.

From Bangkok to Singapore, young jobseekers are confronting growing anxiety about whether there will be a place for them in the industries they trained to enter.

Malaysian graduate struggles to find the right role

Nafeesa Azman, a 24-year-old Malaysian marketing graduate, has applied for hundreds of jobs over the past two months.

She is yet to find a permanent role that pays what she needs or uses the skills she spent years and a good deal of money developing.

Her experience reflects the uncertainty facing graduates who have invested heavily in their education but are finding that entry-level opportunities are changing.

Fear grows among students in Bangkok

Natthanicha Intawong, a final-year media arts student in Bangkok, described the terror many of her peers feel as they prepare to enter a jobs market already being affected by artificial intelligence.

For Joshua Nai, a Singaporean graduate, that concern became tied to his own career plans.

He completed a three-year diploma in animation and game art at Singapore Polytechnic in 2024.

But after seeing increasing amounts of AI-generated artwork being used in the gaming industry and elsewhere, he abandoned his dream of building a career in gaming.

The experiences of Azman, Intawong’s peers and Nai show how AI anxiety is reaching students and graduates before they secure a permanent foothold in the workforce.

Source: South China Morning Post