Thanks to all who joined my 30-minute live briefing today. For those of you who were not there, here’s a chance to catch up. Skip to 1:30 when I start the event.
How is AI impacting the labour market? In today’s live, I discussed
and colleagues’ latest paper “Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence”, which found that early career workers in AI-exposed roles saw a 13% relative decline in employment, while older workers saw employment increase.The decline was stark in industries where AI automates tasks rather than augments workers, particularly software engineering and customer support.
This suggests that AI substitutes for book learning, not the skill that comes with practice. Experience and judgement are therefore becoming more valuable.
Firms may be adjusting to technological shifts through hiring pauses rather than pay cuts or layoffs.
Several measures can counter this. For instance, bringing tacit knowledge forward faster and teaching AI through paid apprenticeships and time-limited incentives can all raise capabilities without widening access gaps.
I’ll share more analysis on the implications of this research in our upcoming Sunday edition.
Have a great weekend,
Azeem
Share this post