ECU holds job fair amid growing AI presence in the job market

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – Maya Beatty is a sophomore at ECU looking for an internship in management, which she believes is a growing industry with evolving technology.

She had a chance to explore that possibility as the East Carolina University job fair welcomed students and alumni for jobs and internships, with about 100 employers from a wide range of industries in the morning, from agriculture to hospitality.

“Going into post-graduation jobs, I think it’s important to have an internship for some sort of experience relevant to my field,” Beatty said.

Beatty says the presence of AI has been growing in her college education and says she would prefer a job that works with the evolving technology.

“In the future, especially in business, we actually will be using AI a lot so I think it would be cool if we were allowed to work with ai than against it.”

In the afternoon, 200 more employers from the science, engineering, and technology industries joined the fair.

Employers like Agriculture Carolina Farm Credit say the job fair is beneficial for the employers as much as it is for the students and alumni.

“To work with students to prepare them for the real world so this is a great opportunity for us to meet folks,” John Bledsoe, an employer from Agriculture Carolina said.

According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 142 thousand jobs were created in August, showing a soft growth with gains mostly in construction and health care.

Nic Herndon, an ECU professor who studies AI says AI can bring varying effects to the market depending on its usage.

“We think that it’s going to replace the workers, but it turns out that it created more work for the employees and in doing so they were able to negotiate higher salaries.”

Herndon says ECU students are working with AI on both undergraduate and graduate levels to be prepared for the current job market.

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