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IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said on 12 October 2026 that AI is hitting the labour market like a "slow-moving tsunami", and that young graduates are first in line. Speaking on a panel at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, she said: "People to worry about, first and foremost, [are] young people that are coming into the labor market. Normally, they would get into these routine, repetitive jobs and then grow up the ranks." The IMF estimates that about 40% of jobs worldwide will eventually be "augmented, downgraded or eliminated" by AI, rising to about 60% in advanced economies. On the same panel, Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who co-chairs the World Bank's Jobs Council, said "the first rung in employment, your first job upon graduation, is now seeing less demand", and urged governments to turn crisis-era support measures into a permanent tool for getting young people into work, including incentives for firms to hire fresh graduates. World Bank president Ajay Banga was less pessimistic, saying that in middle- and lower-middle-income countries the opportunity from small AI tools to build jobs is "enormous". Georgieva also said AI investment is helping keep global growth near 3%. These are forecasts and policy positions from the heads of the institutions that advise governments on jobs, not job cuts, so nothing here enters the AI layoffs tracker. The warning lines up with what employers are doing: entry-level hiring is where AI shows up first.