Young Catholic Job Seekers and Employees Wrestle With the Future of Work| National Catholic Register

Alexis Powers applied for more than 200 jobs after graduating college. 

The 23-year-old South Carolina native had internships, experience in marketing and social media and the kind of résumé counselors often tell students should lead to opportunities. 

“Not a single company reached back out to me,” Powers told the Register. 

She applied through LinkedIn, Indeed and word of mouth. Sometimes, she said, she walked into businesses in person to hand over her résumé.

Some recruiters later told her many companies were using artificial intelligence systems to screen résumés before a human being ever reviewed them. 

“If your résumé does not match exactly what the system is looking for, even with strong experience, it can get tossed to the side,” she said. 

Powers eventually began working as a social-media marketer and laser technician at her mother’s spa, where an AI-assisted 3D skin imaging laser has become part of her daily work. The system helps map patients’ skin treatments in real time, showing how deeply procedures affect scars and pores. 

The technology impressed her. The job market did not.

“It’s a difficult time,” Powers said. “Half of my friends are living with their parents because they cannot afford a house. They’re still looking for a job or getting paid next to nothing doing something outside of their field.”

As AI rapidly reshapes the economy, many members of Gen Z are entering adulthood with uncertainty about work, stability and the future.

That anxiety has increasingly surfaced in public. In one example of what has become a common occurrence this spring, graduates booed a commencement speaker at the University of Central Florida after she praised AI during an address to arts, humanities and communication students.

“It felt like she did not know the crowd she was speaking to,” one graduating senior later told The New York Times. “It did not feel particularly inspiring for a group of young people about to enter the workforce in these creative fields.”

The unease comes amid growing concern over the future of entry-level employment. A May 2025 Kickresume report found that roughly 58% of 2024 and 2025 graduates were still searching for their first job, while an April 2026 Oliver Wyman Forum survey found that 43% of CEOs planned to reduce junior-level positions over the next two years in favor of more senior roles.

“I think a lot of young people are starting to feel a sense of betrayal,” said Will Deatherage, founder and CEO of Catholics for Hire and president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Young Catholic Professionals. 

The 28-year-old said many young people feel as though “the rug was pulled out from under them” just as they prepare to enter adulthood, especially amid warnings from some tech leaders — including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. 

“There’s definitely a sense of apprehension and nervousness among [Gen Z] today that AI is going to completely disrupt the job market,” he said. 

AI and Labor in Magnifica Humanitas

Those anxieties have also drawn increasing attention within the Catholic Church.

In his first papal encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, released May 25, Pope Leo XIV warned that amid the “fourth industrial revolution,” technological innovation is often pursued primarily for “reducing costs and increasing profits,” while workers face growing insecurity and inequality. 

“The protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual must remain the general rule,” the Pope wrote. “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means.”

The encyclical devotes particular attention to young people struggling to build stable lives amid economic uncertainty.

“For young people, job insecurity is particularly devastating,” Pope Leo wrote. “Work is not merely a source of income but a crucial sphere in which identity is formed, friendships and relationships are forged, practical responsibilities are learned and one’s vocation is discerned.”

For many young Catholics, those concerns resonate deeply.

Catherine Halbmaier, a 2026 graduate of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, said AI transformed life very quickly during her college years. 

“Some professors even returned to handwritten, in-class essays to make sure students were not using AI,” she said. 

At the same time, the 22-year-old, who will move to Spain in the fall to work as a teacher’s assistant teaching English to schoolchildren, said many students have learned that personal relationships still matter in an increasingly automated labor market.

“Most of my friends who found jobs did so through personal connections and networking,” Halbmaier said. “It is interesting that even with AI everywhere, what ultimately helps people stand out is a personal connection with an employee.”

Halbmaier also expressed concern about the environmental and social costs associated with the rapid expansion of AI data centers.

“The next few years will be crucial in determining whether AI is worth the cost it has on not just our human agency and dignity, but also to the planet God gave us,” she said. 

‘How Is This Oriented Towards the Good and God?’

Not all young Catholics working in technology, however, view AI with the same level of alarm. 

For Kieran Devine, a 23-year-old who works as a technical solutions engineer for a healthcare software company in Wisconsin, AI has become an essential part of his daily workflow.

“I use AI every day in my work for reading code bases,” Devine said. “It can look at these complex codes — that would normally take me a while to understand what’s going on — and analyze [them] very quickly.”

Still, Devine said many concerns raised by critics of AI are legitimate, particularly when technological gains benefit companies while workers see little return. 

“If workers are able to increase their output but the value of that’s not going to the workers, then that obviously seems pretty unjust,” he said. 

Magnifica Humanitas, he added, raises important questions for both developers and employers about AI’s moral purpose.

“How is this oriented towards the good and God?” he said. 

He also pointed to the Vatican presentation of the encyclical, which included an appearance by Anthropic CEO Christopher Olah, as a hopeful sign that at least some leaders within the AI industry are taking ethical concerns seriously.

“His presence is not something to be scoffed at,” Devine said. “It gives me hope that maybe some of the people behind this technology do genuinely desire the good.” 

Paul A., who requested anonymity, is a Virginia-based 2025 graduate working in marketing at his alma mater while also running his own media company. He said many members of his graduating class had struggled to find stable employment.

“I know the class that just graduated this year is having even greater struggles in finding good jobs,” the 23-year-old said. 

The rise of increasingly realistic AI-generated content, he added, has also intensified the need for discernment online. “So many people believe anything that they read or see on the internet,” he said. “There is such an absence of the search for truth.”

Though AI can be a useful tool, Paul noted, people should approach it with caution, as the technology “has been shown to be flawed many, many times.”

“When you go to buy a new car or a house, you don’t just take it at face value,” he said. “You do your research first and make sure it’s reliable.”

Dignity Beyond Productivity

At Catholic colleges, educators and career counselors say students are increasingly seeking guidance about how to navigate an economy being reshaped by AI. 

Dennis McCarthy, the vice president of finance at Thomas Aquinas College in California who is transitioning into a career counseling role, said students regularly ask whether AI will make their degrees obsolete.

“AI is causing a lot of turmoil in the job market,” he said. “There’s just so much money at stake and competition among countries like China and the U.S. [that] I don’t see AI going away any time soon.”

Still, he believes the Church can help encourage a more cautious and human-centered approach to technological change. 

“I am hoping the Pope’s encyclical will encourage people to be more cautious about the application of AI and the timing of its implementations,” he said. 

According to Anthony Chiappetta, director at the Center for Academic and Career Success at The Catholic University of America (Catholic University), colleges now face the challenge of helping students use AI ethically while preserving human creativity and interaction. 

“We’re starting to see that because of some of the shortfalls of AI, there is a need for the human element to it,” Chiappetta said. 

Organizations such as the Leonine Institute for AI and Emerging Technologies at Catholic University, he noted, are already helping students think critically about how to integrate AI into their future professions in a way that ensures they are “following [their] values, [their] faith and the ethics of proper usage.”

Chiappetta added that students entering today’s workforce increasingly need strong personal networks alongside technical skills. “Attending programs and events that target their industry and put them in front of alumni and employers will expand their network,” he said. 

Despite widespread concerns surrounding AI, some data suggests Gen Z remains cautiously optimistic. A May 2026 survey by the National Society of High School Scholars of more than 11,000 high-school students found that 94% reported feeling at least somewhat confident about their future after college.

Gen Z is also widely considered the most tech-savvy generation, having grown up with smartphones, social media and constant internet access. Studies from Deloitte and the Consumer Technology Association consistently show they are among the quickest to adopt new technologies, including AI tools. 

For Deatherage, however, the conversations around AI ultimately reveal a broader cultural and spiritual crisis about the meaning of work and dignity.

“Our culture has built up the idea that work determines happiness and success,” Deatherage said. “Young people are beginning to feel betrayed by AI.”

As many young people struggle to find stability in a rapidly changing economy, he said the Church has an opportunity to remind them that their worth does not depend on professional status. 

“As they are knocked down,” Deatherage said, “the Church has a task to guide them toward true fulfillment, which can only be found in Jesus Christ.”