BofA CEO reveals he hired 2,000 recent Gen Z grads from 200,000 applications

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan in an interview revealed that the financial institution recently hired 2,000 top grads from 200,000 applications at a time when layoffs have rattled the tech industry. Brian Moynihan says Gen Z is scared about AI and the job market but also offered some words of encouragement, reports Fortune. In an interview with CBS News, Brian Moynihan acknowledged that many young people feel scared and uncertain about the future of job markets as companies are citing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a reason for widespread layoffs, reports Fortune.

“My advice to those kids, if you ask them if they’re worried about, they say they’re worried about—these are kids that we hire, 200,000 applications, we hire 2000 people.” Moynihan added that “if you ask them if they’re scared, they say they are. And I understand that. But I say, harness it … It’ll be your world ahead of you,” Moynihan said.

Artificial intelligence was responsible for most of the layoffs in US in 2025, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Major firms including Amazon and Salesforce cut thousands of roles and cited AI as a factor. Overall job cuts topped 1 million in 2025, the highest level since 2020, per Challenger.
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Bank of America CEO on how AI will play out in the market

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said it is too early to say how AI will play out in the job market, but he hopes to use efficiencies created by the technology to invest in more growth. “We want to drive more growth. So the AI will be spent—the efficiencies from AI will be spent to keep growing the company, I think,” he said.Moynihan also said Americans are focusing too much on the Fed and its impact on the economy. He argued that the private sector is a more important driver of economic growth. “The idea that we are, like, hanging on the thread by the Fed moving rates 25 basis points, it seems to me we’ve gotten out of whack,” he said.
Brian Thomas Moynihan is the chairman, president, and CEO of Bank of America, a position he’s held since 2010. Born in 1959 in Ohio, he earned a history degree from Brown University and a law degree from Notre Dame before starting his career as a corporate attorney. He joined FleetBoston in 1993 and moved up the ranks, eventually becoming CEO of Merrill Lynch when it was acquired by Bank of America.
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GenZ’s hiring fears

Fed chairman Jerome Powell and multiple economists have acknowledged that Gen Z is facing a genuine “hiring nightmare,” especially for recent college graduates trying to land their first white-collar job. Multiple factors such as low pay, low-fire labor market, rapid automation of entry-level roles, and a tech industry whose workforce is aging as Gen Z’s presence declines, is linked to this hiring trend.
The use of AI across companies has become rampant- be it to automate the predictable or process heavy tasks that once needed multiple juniors at work, especially in technology and corporate sectors. Data from early-career hiring platforms such as Handshake show that entry-level corporate job postings are down about 15% year over year, while mentions of “AI” in job descriptions have surged roughly 400% over the past two years.

Economists, including Dartmouth’s David Blanchflower, told Fortune that even when young people secure jobs, many report rising levels of “despair” and a widespread “this job sucks” sentiment, intensifying the impact of graduate unemployment rates that remain higher than the national average. Some unemployed Gen Z graduates are enrolling in additional business degrees or specialized programs to stand out, effectively postponing full-time employment and underscoring a generation that feels compelled to over-credential for a shrinking pool of genuine entry-level opportunities.