> However, I think this pipeline has been taking a hit for a while already because juniors as a whole have been devaluing themselves

I have seen the standards for junior devs in free fall for a few years as they hired tons of bootcamp fodder over the last few years. I have lost count of the number of whinging junior devs who think SQL or regex is 'too hard' for their poor little brains. No wonder they are being replaced by a probabilistic magician's hat.