🌅 AI Isn’t Taking Jobs (At Least Not Yet)

SOURCE

Yale Budget Lab

WHAT TO KNOW

• While headlines and social media spell doom about the impact of AI on labor, a new report by researchers at the Yale Budget Lab and the Brookings Institution suggests those fears are so far misplaced, finding the labor market has yet to experience any discernible disruption since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022. The team found the ongoing changes to the U.S. occupational mix—a measure of the different types of jobs people hold—started in 2021 and the introduction of AI hasn't made the changes more dramatic, concluding it’s still too early to tell what the technology’s impact will be.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The authors liken the ongoing fears about AI’s impact on jobs to past scares that came with the debut of computers and the internet in workplaces at the dawn of the 21st century. Despite the then-held worries, the report found the occupational mix in 2002 was only 7 percentage points different than it was in 1996. Put differently, only 7% of workers in 2002 would have needed to switch jobs to match the composition of the 1996 labor market. When it comes to AI, the occupational mix is on a path only about 1 percentage point higher than it was at the turn of the century.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• While AI might not be changing the broader labor market yet, other research suggests it’s already impacting entry-level workers in roles with high exposure to AI, like software development and customer service. However, the authors of the present report describe that data as more of a “lightning strike” than a “house fire,” arguing the impact of AI on labor is still evolving and it will be some time before we can truly understand its effect.