[hiAndrewQuinn]

This isn't paying poorly for the long term. Firms would be willing to try out riskier hires on the margin, because there's less downside if someone turns out to be a bad fit and gets let go after a couple of weeks.

Percieved risk is higher for people with less industry experience. So if you believe, as I do, that people systematically overestimate the risk they take on bringing juniors on board, and hence systematically underhire them, then this would likely end up being good on net for juniors, as more of them would then be offered a chance to prove the bias wrong.

[hotnfresh]

The main cost of juniors is the time it takes other people to get them going. Good onboarding and mentoring of juniors takes a ton of time creating structure and training material, then working with them once they’re on. If any of that’s messed up or gets derailed by execs pushing for MORE PRODUCTIVITY RIGHT NOW, and taking away time folks were using to train juniors, your onboarding will suck and more juniors will founder. Either way, we’re talking a few months, not weeks, and the junior’s salary isn’t the cost companies with any amount of sense are worried about.