IBM's Nickle LaMoreaux Buys the Dip on Entry-Level Talent

What does IBM's top HR executive do while the rest of Big Tech blames AI for its layoffs? The opposite.

Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's Chief Human Resources Officer and one of 2026's Top 100 HR Tech Influencers, has ordered the company to triple its US entry-level hiring this year, across every business unit, in the very roles the layoff headlines call finished.

A bet against the room

Microsoft, Meta and Salesforce have all leaned on AI to explain thinner ranks in 2026, yet Nickle is doing the reverse, and is unsentimental about why.

"If we don't continue to invest in entry-level hires, what happens in three to five years?" she asked at February's Charter AI Summit in New York. "There's no pipeline; the well simply dries up."

Her broader argument is that the panic is overbaked: "AI will take a portion" of jobs, she told The Deep View at New York Tech Week, "but because we're growing, we still need human jobs to fill that other space."

IBM already ran the experiment

IBM has spent two years automating its own back office, and its AskHR agent now settles about 94% of routine staff requests. The other 6%, the ethical calls and the real judgment, still land with people.

"Our total employment has actually gone up, because what it does is it gives you more investment to put into other areas," IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal, describing how the money saved on administration was pushed back into programmers, sales and software. IBM still employs more than 275,000 people across 170 countries.

Arvind's point, like Nickle's, is that AI frees up capacity rather than removing the need for it.

The AI reversals are piling up

A run of 2026 research suggests many firms that cut first are now quietly hiring back:

• Orgvue found 39% of business leaders made people redundant because of AI; 55% of them now admit they got the call wrong
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia reversed job cuts after an AI voice bot buckled under the calls it was built to handle
• Ford has brought back hundreds of engineers to fix quality problems automation could not. "AI is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," said VP Charles Poon.
• Robert Half told CNBC that 32% of US hiring managers cut a role to AI, then rehired for the same or a similar one.

Even the tooling firms concede the pattern.

"Where AI outputs are inconsistent, inaccurate or difficult to apply, companies often need to reintroduce human oversight," said Jessica Zhang, senior vice president for APAC at ADP, warning of "duplicated effort, slower decision-making and diminished productivity gains."

Nickle's case is that entry-level hiring is a pipeline problem wearing the masquerading as a cost line, and the companies hollowing out their juniors now will have no seniors to promote later.

A 2026 study by IBM's Institute for Business Value found that nearly two-thirds of executives say AI is already reshaping roles and workflows, yet most of their organisations have not rebuilt the people systems to keep up.

Her advice to early-career workers is to lead with outcomes over responsibilities, she says, and treat AI literacy as something to apply rather than list. Communication, judgment and leadership, she adds, "will not be taken over" by AI.

With IBM's second-quarter results due on 23 July, the market will soon judge whether hiring into the teeth of the AI story is nerve or foresight. Nickle has already made her call.

"The companies that will be most competitive in three to five years," she says, "are the ones that are doubling entry-level hiring right now."