Stanford Digital Economy Lab working paper from November 2025 documents a 16% relative employment decline for workers aged 22-25 in AI-exposed occupations post-generative AI deployment, with no comparable drop among experienced staff or in low-exposure roles. Federal Reserve Bank of New York Q4 2025 data shows recent college graduate unemployment at 5.6% and underemployment at 42.5%, coinciding with the AI exposure patterns identified in the Stanford analysis. Anthropic March 2026 report aligns on substitution effects in junior tasks for software, customer service, and programming roles, indicating firms are bypassing traditional training rungs without aggregate unemployment spikes. Primary sources confirm the contraction targets first-rung positions specifically, with no offsetting gains tracked in adjacent low-AI fields.