28. September 2026
The Personio Index: Junior hiring remains on life support
Anna Jager-Elliott
Welcome to Personio Pulse: This Week in HR, where each week we take a look at the latest trends in the world of work, what you need to know about them, and what they mean for you as an HR professional.
This week, we're looking at new data from the Q3 Personio Index on what a small uptick in early-career hiring really tells us.
What you need to know
Job postings for entry-level, intern, and student roles rose from 12.4% to 14.1% between Q2 and Q3 2026, according to the Personio Index report. It's a welcome move, but the swings have been steep recently: postings spiked to 17.5% in Q3 2025, then almost fully reversed within a quarter.
That volatility makes one good quarter hard to trust. The average over the past 12 months sits at 13.5%, well below the 15.9% average of the year before, and Randstad's 2026 Workmonitor found 38% of UK employers now plan to hire fewer graduates because of AI.
What others are saying about it
That volatility is prompting a rethink of what early-career roles are even for, not just how many of them get posted.
"The most successful organisations won't choose between AI and people – they'll redesign early career roles so AI handles administrative tasks while graduates focus on developing judgement, collaboration and problem solving," says Anna-Marie Chand, Head of Talent Acquisition at MHA, in People Management. It's a shift from wrangling headcount to designing roles graduates can actually excel in.
What that means for you
Check whether your organisation cut entry-level roles to fund senior AI hires in the past year: If so, map which of those senior roles will need internal succession within three to five years, and whether your current junior bench can actually fill them.
Rebuild one graduate role from scratch: List every task AI already handles in it, then redesign the role around what's left, rather than assuming the whole position is safe or cutting it outright.
Ring-fence entry-level headcount separately from general hiring approval: Protect a fixed number of graduate and intern requisitions each year so they're not first to go when budgets tighten.
What else should I read?
The Personio Index report, Q3 2026: The full data behind this week's numbers, tracking European workforce trends in real time.
That's all for this edition of Personio Pulse: This Week in HR.
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