Is applying to CS under Letters and Sciences significantly easier than EECS? Also is there a huge difference in these programs in terms of future job opportunities?
Admissions to EECS is around 6-7%, while L&S is around 15-17%. But be careful about the comparison, because it’s an entirely different set of people applying for EECS than for L&S. In general it will be easier to get into L&S, relatively speaking.
Assuming that a student gets into CS for L&S, there pretty much is no difference as far as job opportunities goes upon graduation. The salary difference on the surveys are extremely minimal.
L&S is generally considered an easier admit than CoE EECS.
However, students who enter L&S need to earn a 3.3 college GPA in CS 61A, 61B, 70 (about half of students in these courses earn B+ or higher) in order to declare the L&S CS major, while CoE EECS is direct admission to the major.
So you can choose between one harder admission gate (CoE EECS) or a less hard admission gate (L&S) followed by another admission gate later (to get into L&S CS).
You can compare post-graduation outcomes in the CoE EECS and L&S CS career surveys: https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2018Majors