Airbus is preparing to tender a major contract to move mission-critical systems like ERP, manufacturing, and aircraft design data onto a digitally sovereign European cloud, citing national security concerns and fears around U.S. extraterritorial laws like the CLOUD Act. "I need a sovereign cloud because part of the information is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective," Catherine Jestin, Airbus's executive vice president of digital, told The Register. "We want to ensure this information remains under European control." The Register reports: The driver is access to new software. Vendors like SAP are developing innovations exclusively in the cloud, pushing customers toward platforms like S/4HANA. The request for proposals launches in early January, with a decision expected before summer. The contract -- understood to be worth more than 50 million euros -- will be long term (up to ten years), with price predictability over the period. [...] Jestin is waiting for European regulators to clarify whether Airbus would truly be "immune to extraterritorial laws" -- and whether services could be interrupted.

The concern isn't theoretical. Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan reportedly lost access to his Microsoft email after Trump sanctioned him for criticizing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, though Microsoft denies suspending ICC services. Beyond US complications, Jestin questions whether European cloud providers have sufficient scale. "If you asked me today if we'll find a solution, I'd say 80/20."

Elite computer science degrees are no longer a guaranteed on-ramp to tech jobs, as AI-driven coding tools slash demand for entry-level engineers and concentrate hiring around a small pool of already "elite" or AI-savvy developers. The Los Angeles Times reports: "Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs" with the most prominent tech brands, said Jan Liphardt, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. "I think that's crazy." While the rapidly advancing coding capabilities of generative AI have made experienced engineers more productive, they have also hobbled the job prospects of early-career software engineers. Stanford students describe a suddenly skewed job market, where just a small slice of graduates -- those considered "cracked engineers" who already have thick resumes building products and doing research -- are getting the few good jobs, leaving everyone else to fight for scraps.

"There's definitely a very dreary mood on campus," said a recent computer science graduate who asked not to be named so they could speak freely. "People [who are] job hunting are very stressed out, and it's very hard for them to actually secure jobs." The shake-up is being felt across California colleges, including UC Berkeley, USC and others. The job search has been even tougher for those with less prestigious degrees. [...] Data suggests that even though AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring many people, it is not offsetting the decline in hiring elsewhere. Employment for specific groups, such as early-career software developers between the ages of 22 and 25 has declined by nearly 20% from its peak in late 2022, according to a Stanford study. [...]

A common sentiment from hiring managers is that where they previously needed ten engineers, they now only need "two skilled engineers and one of these LLM-based agents," which can be just as productive, said Nenad Medvidovic, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California. "We don't need the junior developers anymore," said Amr Awadallah, CEO of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. "The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there." [...] Stanford students say they are arriving at the job market and finding a split in the road; capable AI engineers can find jobs, but basic, old-school computer science jobs are disappearing. As they hit this surprise speed bump, some students are lowering their standards and joining companies they wouldn't have considered before. Some are creating their own startups. A large group of frustrated grads are deciding to continue their studies to beef up their resumes and add more skills needed to compete with AI.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: At this point, most competitive online multiplayer games on the PC come with some kind of kernel-level anti-cheat software. As we've written before, this is software that runs with more elevated privileges than most other apps and games you run on your PC, allowing it to load in earlier and detect advanced methods of cheating. More recently, anti-cheat software has started to require more Windows security features like Secure Boot, a TPM 2.0 module, and virtualization-based memory integrity protection. Riot Games, best known for titles like Valorant and League of Legends and the Vanguard anti-cheat software, has often been one of the earliest to implement new anti-cheat requirements. There's already a long list of checks that systems need to clear before they'll be allowed to play Riot's games online, and now the studio is announcing a new one: a BIOS update requirement that will be imposed on "certain players" following Riot's discovery of a UEFI bug that could allow especially dedicated and motivated cheaters to circumvent certain memory protections.

In short, the bug affects the input-output memory management unit (IOMMU) "on some UEFI-based motherboards from multiple vendors." One feature of the IOMMU is to protect system memory from direct access during boot by external hardware devices, which otherwise might manipulate the contents of your PC's memory in ways that could enable cheating. The patch for these security vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-11901, CVE-202514302, CVE-2025-14303, and CVE-2025-14304) fixes a problem where this pre-boot direct memory access (DMA) protection could be disabled even if it was marked as enabled in the BIOS, creating a small window during the boot process where DMA devices could gain access to RAM.

The relative obscurity and complexity of this hardware exploit means that Vanguard isn't going to be enforcing these BIOS requirements on every single player of its games. For now, it will just apply to "restricted" players of Valorant whose systems, for one reason or another, are "too similar to cheaters who get around security features in order to become undetectable to Vanguard." But Riot says it's considering rolling the BIOS requirement out to all players in Valorant's highest competitive ranking tiers (Ascendant, Immortal, and Radiant), where there's more to be gained from working around the anti-cheat software. And Riot anti-cheat analyst Mohamed Al-Sharifi says the same restrictions could be turned on for League of Legends, though they aren't currently. If users are blocked from playing by Vanguard, they'll need to download and install the latest BIOS update for their motherboard before they'll be allowed to launch the game. Riot's new anti-cheat change could create problems for older PCs if the new anti-cheat change is expanded, notes Ars.

The update relies on a BIOS patch to fix a UEFI flaw, and many older motherboards, especially Intel 300-series and AMD AM4 boards, may never receive that update. If Riot flags a system and the manufacturer doesn't provide a patched BIOS, players could be locked out of games despite having otherwise capable hardware.

Microsoft's latest holiday ad for its Copilot AI assistant features a 30-second montage of users seamlessly syncing smart home lights to music, scaling recipes for large gatherings, and parsing HOA guidelines -- none of which the software can actually perform reliably when put to the test. The Verge methodically tested each prompt shown in the ad and found that Copilot repeatedly hallucinated interface elements that didn't exist, claimed to highlight on-screen buttons when it hadn't, and abandoned calculations midway through.

The smart home interface shown in the ad belongs to "Relecloud," a fictional company Microsoft uses in internal case studies. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that both the HOA document and the inflatable reindeer photo were fabricated for the advertisement. The ad closes with Santa Claus asking Copilot why toy production is behind schedule.

Further reading: Talking To Windows' Copilot AI Makes a Computer Feel Incompetent.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Direct navigation -- the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser -- has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of "parked" domains -- mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites -- are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike "typosquatting" domain, they are typically brought to a placeholder page at a domain parking company that tries to monetize the wayward traffic by displaying links to a number of third-party websites that have paid to have their links shown.

A decade ago, ending up at one of these parked domains came with a relatively small chance of being redirected to a malicious destination: In 2014, researchers found (PDF) that parked domains redirected users to malicious sites less than five percent of the time -- regardless of whether the visitor clicked on any links at the parked page. But in a series of experiments over the past few months, researchers at the security firm Infoblox say they discovered the situation is now reversed, and that malicious content is by far the norm now for parked websites. "In large scale experiments, we found that over 90% of the time, visitors to a parked domain would be directed to illegal content, scams, scareware and anti-virus software subscriptions, or malware, as the 'click' was sold from the parking company to advertisers, who often resold that traffic to yet another party," Infoblox researchers wrote in a paper published today.

LG said it will let owners of its TVs delete Microsoft's Copilot shortcut after several reports highlighted the unremovable icon. In a statement to The Verge, LG says the company "respects consumer choice and will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish." From the report: Last week, a user on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit posted an image of the Microsoft Copilot icon in their lineup of apps on an LG TV, with no option to delete it. "My LG TV's new software update installed Microsoft Copilot, which cannot be deleted," the post says. The post garnered more than 36,000 upvotes as people grow more frustrated with AI popping up just about everywhere.

Both LG and Samsung announced plans to add Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant to their TVs in January, but it appears to be popping up on LG TVs following a recent update to webOS. [LG spokesperson Chris De Maria] clarifies that the icon is a "shortcut" to the Microsoft Copilot web app that opens in the TV's web browser, rather than "an application-based service embedded in the TV." He also adds that "features such as microphone input are activated only with the customer's explicit consent." There's no word on when LG will roll out the ability to delete the Copilot icon.

A California judge signaled support for forcing Vizio to provide the full source code for its SmartCast TV software after finding a contractual obligation under the GPL. If upheld, the case could strengthen users' rights to modify GPL-licensed software embedded in consumer electronics. The Register reports: The legal complaint from the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) seeks access to the SmartCast source code so that Vizio customers can make changes and improvements to the platform, something that ought to be possible for code distributed under the GPL. On Thursday, California Superior Court Judge Sandy Leal issued a tentative ruling in advance of a hearing, indicating support for part of SFC's legal challenge. The tentative ruling is not a final decision, but it signals the judge's inclination to grant the SFC's motion for summary adjudication, at least in part.

"The tentative ruling [PDF] grants SFC's motion on the issue that a direct contract was made between SFC and Vizio when SFC's systems administrator, Paul Visscher, requested the source code to a TV that SFC has purchased," the SFC said in a blog post. "This contract obligated Vizio to provide SFC the complete and corresponding source code." [...]

Karen Sandler, executive director of the SFC, told The Register in an email that the hearing went well, though Vizio's legal counsel "stridently disagreed" with the legal analysis in the tentative ruling. "Judge Leal said she would take the matter 'under submission' which means she will think about it further," Sandler said. "After the Court went off the record, Leal's clerk specifically verified the Court reporter could provide an expedited transcript, so Leal will likely review the hearing transcript soon." Sandler expects Leal will examine the filings again before issuing her opinion, which is likely to be issued in the next few weeks.

Apple has announced a sweeping set of changes to iOS in Japan that will allow alternative app marketplaces, third-party payment processing, and non-WebKit browser engines -- all to comply with Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act, which takes effect December 18. The changes, now available in iOS 26.2, bear a strong resemblance to Apple's compliance measures for the European Union's Digital Markets Act but differ in key ways.

Japanese developers who want to offer alternative payment options must display them alongside Apple's in-app purchase system, giving users a choice at checkout rather than replacing Apple's option entirely. Apps cannot be distributed directly from websites as they can in the EU; they must go through an authorized marketplace.

Apple has established a tiered fee structure for the new arrangements. Apps distributed through the App Store using in-app purchase will pay between 15 and 26% depending on whether developers qualify for the Small Business Program. Alternative payment processing drops the 5% payment fee but keeps the base commission. Apps distributed outside the App Store pay a flat 5% Core Technology Commission on digital goods and services.

The company introduced several user-facing changes beyond app distribution. iPhone users in Japan will see browser and search engine choice screens during device setup, can assign third-party voice assistants to the side button, and can select alternative default navigation apps. Apple said it worked closely with Japanese regulators on protections for younger users. Apps in the Kids category cannot link to external websites for purchases, and users under 13 cannot access web links for transactions in any app.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company has no plans to extend these changes to other markets.

Meta has paused its third-party Horizon OS headset program, effectively canceling planned VR headsets from Asus and Lenovo as it refocuses on "building the world-class first-party hardware and software needed to advance the VR market." Road to VR reports: A little over a year and a half ago, Meta made an "industry-altering announcement," as I called the move in my reporting: the company was rebranding the Quest operating system to 'Horizon OS' and announced it was working with select partners to launch third-party VR headsets powered by the operating system. Meta specifically named Asus and Lenovo as the first partners it was working with to build new Horizon OS headsets. Asus was said to be building an "all-new performance gaming headset," while Lenovo was purportedly working on "mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment."

But as we've now learned, neither headset is likely to see the light of day. Meta say it has frozen the third-party Horizon OS headset program. "We have paused the program to focus on building the world-class first-party hardware and software needed to advance the VR market," a Meta spokesperson told Road to VR. "We're committed to this for the long term and will revisit opportunities for 3rd-party device partnerships as the category evolves."

Coursera announced on Wednesday that it will acquire rival online learning platform Udemy in an all-stock deal that values the combined company at $2.5 billion, a move that brings together two of the largest U.S.-based players in an industry that has struggled since pandemic-era enrollment highs faded. Under the terms of the agreement, Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each share they hold, valuing Udemy at roughly $930 million. Based on Coursera's last closing price, the offer works out to $6.35 per Udemy share, an 18.3% premium. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The two companies are betting that a combined platform will be better positioned to pursue corporate customers seeking to retrain workers in artificial intelligence, data science and software development. Coursera has built its business on partnerships with universities and institutions to offer degree programs and professional certificates, while Udemy operates a marketplace where independent instructors sell courses directly to consumers and businesses. Both stocks have significantly underperformed this year. Udemy shares have fallen about 35% and Coursera is down roughly 7%, leaving both trading well below their post-IPO highs as investors remain cautious about competition and pricing pressure in the sector.

Google is suing a Chinese-speaking cybercriminal group it says is responsible for a massive wave of scam text messages sent to Americans this year, according to a legal complaint filed Tuesday. From a report: The group, known as Darcula, sells software that allows users to send phishing text messages en masse, impersonating organizations like the IRS or the U.S. Postal Service in scams. The lawsuit is designed to give Google legal standing so U.S. courts will allow it to seize websites the group uses, hampering their operations, a spokesperson said.

Darcula is possibly the most prominent name in an emerging, loosely affiliated cybercrime world that creates and sells hacking programs for aspiring scammers to use. Darcula's signature program, called Magic Cat, provides an easy-to-use, intuitive way for cybercriminals without advanced hacking skills to quickly spam millions of phone numbers with links to fake websites impersonating businesses like YouTube's premium service, then steal the credit card numbers victims put in.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: The alleged perpetrator had improper access to virtually every South Korean adult's personal information: names, phone numbers and even the keycode to enter residential buildings. It was one of the biggest data breaches of recent years and it has sent the company it targeted -- Coupang, South Korea's equivalent of Amazon -- reeling, generating lawsuits, government investigation and calls to toughen penalties against such leaks. The leak went undetected for nearly five months, hitting Coupang's radar on Nov. 18 only after a customer flagged suspicious activity.

At first, Coupang, which was founded by a Korean-American entrepreneur, said it had experienced a data "exposure" affecting roughly 4,500 customer accounts. But within days, the e-commerce firm revised the figure: The leak exposed up to roughly 34 million user accounts in South Korea -- a sum representing more than 90% of the country's working-age population. Coupang started calling the incident a "leak" after Korean regulators took issue with the company's prior word choice. "The Whole Nation Is a Victim," read one local news headline.

An investigation has found that the alleged perpetrator had once worked in South Korea as a software developer for authentication systems at Coupang, which is known for its blockbuster U.S. initial public offering a few years ago. The suspected leaker is believed to be a Chinese national who has moved back to China and is now on the lam, South Korean officials say. They haven't named the person. Even after leaving the firm roughly a year ago, the suspect secretly held on to an internal authentication key that granted him unfettered access to the personal information of Coupang users, South Korean authorities and lawmakers say. The infiltration, using overseas servers, started on June 24. By using the login credentials, the suspect was able to appear as if he were still a Coupang employee when accessing the company's systems.

Intel has quietly stopped maintaining its open-source user-space driver stack for Gaudi accelerators. Phoronix reports: It turns out earlier this year Intel archived the SynapseAI Core open-source code and is no longer maintained by Intel. The open-source Synapse AI Core GitHub repository was archived in February and README updated with: "This project will no longer be maintained by Intel. Intel has ceased development and contributions including, but not limited to, maintenance, bug fixes, new releases, or updates, to this project. Intel no longer accepts patches to this project. If you have an ongoing need to use this project, are interested in independently developing it, or would like to maintain patches for the open source software community, please create your own fork of this project."

Mozilla has named Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as its new chief executive, promoting the executive who has spent the past year leading the Firefox browser team and who now plans to make AI central to the company's future.

Enzor-DeMeo announced on Tuesday that an "AI Mode" is coming to Firefox next year. The feature will let users choose from multiple AI models rather than being locked into a single provider. Some options will be open-source models, others will be private "Mozilla-hosted cloud options," and the company also plans to integrate models from major AI companies. Mozilla itself will not train its own large language model.

"We're not incentivized to push one model or the other," Enzor-DeMeo told The Verge. Firefox currently has about 200 million monthly users, a fraction of Chrome's roughly 4 billion, though Enzor-DeMeo insists mobile usage is growing at a decent clip.

He takes over from interim CEO Laura Chambers, who led the company through a major antitrust case and what Mozilla describes as "double-digit mobile growth" in Firefox. Chambers is returning to the Mozilla board of directors. The new CEO has outlined three priorities: ensuring all products give users control over AI features including the ability to turn them off, building a business model around transparent monetization, and expanding Firefox into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Mozilla VPN integration is planned for the browser next year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is killing off an obsolete and vulnerable encryption cipher that Windows has supported by default for 26 years following more than a decade of devastating hacks that exploited it and recently faced blistering criticism from a prominent US senator. When the software maker rolled out Active Directory in 2000, it made RC4 a sole means of securing the Windows component, which administrators use to configure and provision fellow administrator and user accounts inside large organizations. RC4, short for Rivist Cipher 4, is a nod to mathematician and cryptographer Ron Rivest of RSA Security, who developed the stream cipher in 1987. Within days of the trade-secret-protected algorithm being leaked in 1994, a researcher demonstrated a cryptographic attack that significantly weakened the security it had been believed to provide. Despite the known susceptibility, RC4 remained a staple in encryption protocols, including SSL and its successor TLS, until about a decade ago. [...]

Last week, Microsoft said it was finally deprecating RC4 and cited its susceptibility to Kerberoasting, the form of attack, known since 2014, that was the root cause of the initial intrusion into Ascension's network. "By mid-2026, we will be updating domain controller defaults for the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) on Windows Server 2008 and later to only allow AES-SHA1 encryption," Matthew Palko, a Microsoft principal program manager, wrote. "RC4 will be disabled by default and only used if a domain administrator explicitly configures an account or the KDC to use it." [...] Following next year's change, RC4 authentication will no longer function unless administrators perform the extra work to allow it. In the meantime, Palko said, it's crucial that admins identify any systems inside their networks that rely on the cipher. Despite the known vulnerabilities, RC4 remains the sole means of some third-party legacy systems for authenticating to Windows networks. These systems can often go overlooked in networks even though they are required for crucial functions.

To streamline the identification of such systems, Microsoft is making several tools available. One is an update to KDC logs that will track both requests and responses that systems make using RC4 when performing requests through Kerberos. Kerberos is an industry-wide authentication protocol for verifying the identities of users and services over a non-secure network. It's the sole means for mutual authentication to Active Directory, which hackers attacking Windows networks widely consider a Holy Grail because of the control they gain once it has been compromised. Microsoft is also introducing new PowerShell scripts to sift through security event logs to more easily pinpoint problematic RC4 usage. Microsoft said it has steadily worked over the past decade to deprecate RC4, but that the task wasn't easy. "The problem though is that it's hard to kill off a cryptographic algorithm that is present in every OS that's shipped for the last 25 years and was the default algorithm for so long, Steve Syfuhs, who runs Microsoft's Windows Authentication team, wrote on Bluesky. "See," he continued, "the problem is not that the algorithm exists. The problem is how the algorithm is chosen, and the rules governing that spanned 20 years of code changes."

Once a star of the self-driving hype cycle, lidar maker Luminar has filed for bankruptcy amid legal turmoil, layoffs, and a cooling autonomous-vehicle market. It plans to sell off its assets before shutting down entirely. The Verge reports: As part of its bankruptcy, Luminar is seeking permission to sell both its lidar and semiconductor businesses, the latter of which it has already agreed to sell to Quantum Computing for $110 million. The company plans to continue to operate during the bankruptcy proceedings "to minimize disruptions and maintain delivery of its LiDAR hardware and software." That said, Luminar will cease to exist once the process is complete. "As we navigate this process, our top priority is to continue delivering the same quality, reliability and service our customers have come to expect from us," CEO Paul Ricci said in a statement.

After launching in 2017, Luminar muscled its way to the front of the autonomous vehicle industry as a top maker of lidar systems, a key technology that driverless cars use to sense the shapes and distances of objects around them. Luminar has sold sensors to Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Audi, Toyota Research Institute, Caterpillar, and even Tesla, which has dismissed lidar sensors in favor of traditional cameras. The company was valued at nearly $3 billion when it went public through a reverse merger with a SPAC in 2020.

The Trump administration announced Monday the United States Tech Force, a new program to recruit around 1,000 technologists for two-year government stints starting as soon as March -- less than a year after dismantling several federal technology teams and driving thousands of tech workers out of their jobs.

The program will primarily recruit early-career software engineers and data scientists, paying between $150,000 and $200,000 annually. About 20 companies have signed on to participate, including Palantir, Meta, Oracle and Elon Musk's xAI. Some engineering managers will be allowed to take leaves of absence from their private-sector employers to join the program without divesting their stock holdings.

The initiative follows the March closure of 18F, General Services Administration's internal tech consultancy, and the shuttering of the Social Security Administration's Office of Transformation in February. The IRS had lost over 2,000 tech workers by June.

LG smart TV owners discovered over the weekend that a recent webOS software update had quietly installed Microsoft Copilot on their devices, and the app cannot be uninstalled. Affected users report the feature appears automatically after installing the latest webOS update on certain models, sitting alongside streaming apps like Netflix and YouTube.

LG's support documentation confirms that certain preinstalled or system apps can only be hidden, not deleted. At CES 2025, LG announced plans to integrate Copilot into webOS as part of its "AI TV" strategy, describing it as an extension of its AI Search experience. The current implementation appears to function as a shortcut to a web-based Copilot interface rather than a native application. Samsung TVs include Google's Gemini in a similar fashion. Users wanting to avoid the feature entirely are left with one option: disconnecting their TV from the internet.

The Black Hat Europe hacker conference in London included a session titled "Don't Judge an Audiobook by Its Cover" about a two critical (and now fixed) flaws in Amazon's Kindle. The Times reports both flaws were discovered by engineering analyst Valentino Ricotta (from the cybersecurity research division of Thales), who was awarded a "bug bounty" of $20,000 (£15,000 ). He said: "What especially struck me with this device, that's been sitting on my bedside table for years, is that it's connected to the internet. It's constantly running because the battery lasts a long time and it has access to my Amazon account. It can even pay for books from the store with my credit card in a single click. Once an attacker gets a foothold inside a Kindle, it could access personal data, your credit card information, pivot to your local network or even to other devices that are registered with your Amazon account."

Ricotta discovered flaws in the Kindle software that scans and extracts information from audiobooks... He also identified a vulnerability in the onscreen keyboard. Through both of these, he tricked the Kindle into loading malicious code, which enabled him to take the user's Amazon session cookies — tokens that give access to the account. Ricotta said that people could be exposed to this type of hack if they "side-load" books on to the Kindle through non-Amazon stores.
Ricotta donated his bug bounties to charity...

AI "has gutted entry-level roles in the tech industry," reports Rest of World.

One student at a high-ranking engineering college in India tells them that among his 400 classmates, "fewer than 25% have secured job offers... there's a sense of panic on the campus." Students at engineering colleges in India, China, Dubai, and Kenya are facing a "jobpocalypse" as artificial intelligence replaces humans in entry-level roles. Tasks once assigned to fresh graduates, such as debugging, testing, and routine software maintenance, are now increasingly automated. Over the last three years, the number of fresh graduates hired by big tech companies globally has declined by more than 50%, according to a report published by SignalFire, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Even though hiring rebounded slightly in 2024, only 7% of new hires were recent graduates. As many as 37% of managers said they'd rather use AI than hire a Gen Z employee...

Indian IT services companies have reduced entry-level roles by 20%-25% thanks to automation and AI, consulting firm EY said in a report last month. Job platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Eures noted a 35% decline in junior tech positions across major EU countries during 2024...

"Five years ago, there was a real war for [coders and developers]. There was bidding to hire," and 90% of the hires were for off-the-shelf technical roles, or positions that utilize ready-made technology products rather than requiring in-house development, said Vahid Haghzare, director at IT hiring firm Silicon Valley Associates Recruitment in Dubai. Since the rise of AI, "it has dropped dramatically," he said. "I don't even think it's touching 5%. It's almost completely vanished." The company headhunts workers from multiple countries including China, Singapore, and the U.K... The current system, where a student commits three to five years to learn computer science and then looks for a job, is "not sustainable," Haghzare said. Students are "falling down a hole, and they don't know how to get out of it."