Reviewed edition · qasb report 10/2026 · Topic report · Work
AI and work: signs of weaker entry opportunities
For young people and for hiring in AI-exposed occupations, mostly descriptive studies from Germany, France and Denmark find less favourable trends. October’s evidence shows no broad employment collapse.
Key findings
- −3.8%Full-time employment of 20–29-year-olds in highly AI-exposed occupations, Germany 2025 versus 2022 (less exposed −2.6%).8Evidence: observed
- about −28%Permanent hires of 21–29-year-olds in France’s most AI-exposed occupations, March 2026 versus November 2022.3Evidence: observed
- −25%Employment in AI-exposed occupations at Danish firms that first used AI in 2023, against their own trend by late 2025.19Evidence: observed
- 41%of firms in Germany with the highest occupational AI exposure used AI in the second half of 2025.9Evidence: observed
1.0Summary
Among young people in highly AI-exposed occupations, full-time employment in Germany and permanent hiring in France developed less favourably than in less exposed ones. Both findings are descriptive. US data on recent graduates and UK business reports show little effect.
- Companies adopting AI shifted their workforce towards senior positions. Danish firms that first used AI in 2023 hired below trend without laying off more.
- Experiments, some run or co-funded by AI vendors, show performance gains for IT apprentices and patent lawyers. Teachers in Lima saved no measurable time.
- Surveys link AI use with better jobs, more responsibility and more frequent loneliness without establishing cause and effect.
- Causal evidence on wages and health is missing, as are October studies on social partners, health care, the creative industries and customer service.
2.0Starting point: use and measurement
Ahead of the labour market data, this chapter asks who actually uses AI at work and how reliable occupational measures built on model judgements are. It draws on an EU-wide survey of workers, a survey of firms in Germany and an audit of language-model judges. All three describe distributions or measurement quality, not an effect of AI.
AI use at work by job quality
Share of workers in the EU using AI at work, AIM-WORK survey 2024–2025
| Series | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Better-quality jobs | 35.3 | observed | 13 |
| EU average | 29.9 | observed | 13 |
| Atypical and longer working times | 19.3 | observed | 13 |
| Lower earnings and security | 16.9 | observed | 13 |
According to the AIM-WORK survey 2024–2025, 29.9% of workers in the EU used AI at work; in better-quality jobs the figure was 35.3%, in jobs with lower earnings and security 16.9%. Weekly use was 12.7% versus 7.2%.13A1
In Germany, 41% of firms with the highest occupational AI exposure used AI in the second half of 2025, compared with 13% of firms with the lowest exposure; yet among firms in the most exposed group that neither used nor planned to use AI, 85% saw no possible application, barely fewer than among the least exposed (91%).9A2
3.0Entry: signs of weaker opportunities
Studies approach the question of whether AI makes entry into work harder in different ways: with employment and hiring data on young people by the AI exposure of their occupation in Germany and France, with online profiles at foreign affiliates in 41 countries, and with Danish register data on firms that use AI.
Full-time employment by AI exposure in Germany
Change 2025 versus 2022, 20–29-year-olds and all age groups
| Series | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aged 20–29, highly exposed | −3.8 | observed | 8 |
| Aged 20–29, less exposed | −2.6 | observed | 8 |
| All age groups, most exposed | 1 | observed | 8 |
| All age groups, less exposed | −3 | observed | 8 |
In Germany, full-time employment of 20–29-year-olds in 2025 was 3.8% below its 2022 level in highly AI-exposed occupations and 2.6% below in less exposed occupations; across all age groups, however, employment in the most exposed occupational groups was about 1% above, and in the less exposed groups a little over 3% below, its 2022 level.8A4
In France, permanent-contract (CDI) hires of 21–29-year-olds in the occupations most exposed to generative AI were about 28% below their November 2022 level in March 2026, compared with about 8% in the least exposed occupations; contract terminations also fell more there (about 23% versus 6%).3A5
In Danish firms that first used AI in 2023, the employment shortfall by late 2025 arose through less hiring rather than layoffs and was concentrated in AI-exposed occupations (25% below trend versus 7% in other occupations); wages did not respond.19A6
4.0Labour market data: no broad collapse visible so far
Further data from the US, the UK and five East Asia and Pacific economies cover unemployment, business reports and job postings, although the East Asian postings run only to mid-2025. They are complemented by qualitative reports to the US Federal Reserve from contacts not selected at random.
Unemployment among young US bachelor’s graduates in summer
Aged 22–25, no longer enrolled, June–August average, 2022 to 2026
| Series | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer 2022 | 7.1 | observed | 4 |
| Summer 2023 | 6.3 | observed | 4 |
| Summer 2024 | 7.8 | observed | 4 |
| Summer 2025 | 7.2 | observed | 4 |
| Summer 2026 | 7.3 | observed | 4 |
The unemployment rate of young US bachelor's graduates (aged 22–25, no longer enrolled) was 7.3% in summer 2026, within the range of summers 2022–2025; relative to older graduates and young people without a degree it did not rise significantly.4A8
Of UK businesses with 10 or more employees that used AI in September 2026, 6% said they had fewer staff as a result of adopting AI and fewer than 1% said they had more; 38% of them named administrative and clerical roles as most affected.5A9
In the October 2026 Beige Book, five of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts reported that some firms had reduced staffing through attrition, delayed hiring or expected less job creation after productivity-raising investment in AI; overall employment was little changed in most Districts.10A10
5.0Tasks: better performance, time savings unresolved
Three randomised experiments measure the effect of AI: on IT apprentices in test tasks, on patent lawyers over three months and on teachers in Lima over eight months. Two observational studies, at Meta and at a consumer goods multinational, add to the picture. Possible conflicts of interest: Google ran and funded the patent experiment, Microsoft co-funded the Lima study and the Meta study is in-house.
Additional points achieved with ChatGPT in a field experiment
Gain over a no-internet control group, 673 final-year IT apprentices
| Series | Value | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Task within the curriculum | 44 | observed | 1 |
| Second task beyond the curriculum | 31 | observed | 1 |
| First task beyond the curriculum | 26 | observed | 1 |
In a preregistered field experiment with 673 final-year IT apprentices, access to ChatGPT, compared with a no-internet control group, raised the share of points achieved on two tasks beyond the apprenticeship curriculum by about 26 and 31 percentage points, and on the within-curriculum task by about 44 percentage points.1A13
In a preregistered three-month field experiment with 133 patent lawyers from eleven US firms, an AI drafting assistant raised the blind-rated quality of patent drafts by 0.34 standard deviations after 10 days and 0.38 after 90 days; in a subsequent review task without AI, only experienced lawyers (seven or more years) outperformed the control group, while junior lawyers showed no average gain.16A14
A programme of training, an AI licence and follow-up saved teachers in Lima no measurable time on any of seven core tasks.
In a randomized trial with 1,269 sixth-grade teachers in Lima, a programme of one-day training, an AI licence and eight months of follow-up saved no measurable time on any of seven core tasks; however, teachers wrote better prompts in blind grading and were less likely to rate an inadequate AI output as good.2A15
6.0Working conditions: rules, algorithms, well-being
The chapter combines the legal position, the AI Act’s deadlines for employment systems, with surveys of workers in the US and the EU and of platform workers in Phnom Penh. These capture prevalence, self-assessments and associations, not measured effects. Algorithmic management also covers systems without AI, and the Phnom Penh survey does not measure AI use.
AI Act: deadlines for employment systems
Amending Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 and the start of the high-risk obligations
- Jul 8, 2026Amending Regulation 2026/1744Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of 8 July 2026 postpones the high-risk obligations for employment systems. On AI literacy (Article 4) it requires measures, not a specific level.
- Aug 2, 2026Original datePreviously planned start of the high-risk obligations for employment systems, postponed by the amendment.
- Dec 2, 2027High-risk obligations applyObligations for employment systems under Annex III, such as candidate selection or performance monitoring, including informing workers’ representatives and affected workers before use.
| Date | Milestone | Evidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 8, 2026 | Amending Regulation 2026/1744Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of 8 July 2026 postpones the high-risk obligations for employment systems. On AI literacy (Article 4) it requires measures, not a specific level. | observed | 21,22 |
| Aug 2, 2026 | Original datePreviously planned start of the high-risk obligations for employment systems, postponed by the amendment. | observed | 21,22 |
| Dec 2, 2027 | High-risk obligations applyObligations for employment systems under Annex III, such as candidate selection or performance monitoring, including informing workers’ representatives and affected workers before use. | observed | 21,22 |
Older legal context (July 2026): Since Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, the AI Act’s high-risk obligations for employment systems under Annex III, such as candidate selection, task allocation or performance monitoring, including the duty of employers as deployers to inform workers’ representatives and affected workers before use, apply only from 2 December 2027 instead of 2 August 2026. The AI literacy obligation (Article 4) now requires measures to support it, but no specific level of literacy.21,22A18
Of US employees who had used AI in their job, 63% said it helped them complete tasks faster and 46% that it improved the quality of their work; 31% said their AI use had led their employer to ask them to take on more responsibilities. Of all employees, 52% said they had less influence over the adoption of new technology than they would like.11A19
According to the AIM-WORK survey, about 40% of workers in the EU in all three job-quality clusters received work instructions from algorithms; algorithmic evaluation, such as automatic rewarding, benchmarking or task assignment based on customer ratings, affected 28.2% on EU average and 31.9% in jobs with atypical and longer working times.13A20
7.0Evidence
Not every statement in this report is equally well supported. The table shows the key statements with their evidence type, AI relationship and sources.
| Statement | Evidence | AI link | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 41% of firms in Germany with the highest occupational AI exposure used AI in the second half of 2025 | observed | not stated | 9 |
| −3.8%: Full-time employment of 20–29-year-olds in highly AI-exposed occupations, Germany 2025 versus 2022 (less exposed −2.6%) | observed | not stated | 8 |
| about −28%: Permanent hires of 21–29-year-olds in France’s most AI-exposed occupations, March 2026 versus November 2022 | observed | not stated | 3 |
| −25%: Employment in AI-exposed occupations at Danish firms that first used AI in 2023, against their own trend by late 2025 | observed | not stated | 19 |
| Young US bachelor's graduates in summer 2026: 7.3% unemployed, within the earlier range | observed | not stated | 4 |
| IT apprentices with ChatGPT: about 26 and 31 percentage points more beyond the curriculum | observed | not stated | 1 |
| AI Act: obligations for employment systems apply only from 2 December 2027 | observed | not stated | 21,22 |
| Algorithmic evaluation affected 28.2% of workers in the EU | observed | not stated | 13 |
The 22 reviewed statements from 22 original sources fall into chapters 2.0 (3), 3.0 (4), 4.0 (5), 5.0 (5) and 6.0 (5); all are classed as observed. “Not stated”: the edition does not assess the AI relationship of these statements separately. The scope and limitations of every statement are listed in the appendix (A1 to A22).
Original sources checked on October 27, 2026.
8.0What organisations can do now
- Keep an eye on entry: analyse hiring and employment of newcomers in highly AI-exposed roles separately. In the Danish data, the shortfall arose through less hiring, not layoffs.
- Monitor how newcomers build skills: whether they build lasting expertise with AI support is open. In the patent experiment, the small junior group showed no average advantage over the control group in a review task without AI.
- Measure the effect in your organisation rather than assume it: the experiments cover single occupations, test tasks or a few months. Occupational measures based on language-model judgements depend strongly on the rating instrument.
- Inform and enable: support AI literacy (Article 4 of the AI Act). From December 2027, workers’ representatives and affected workers must be informed before Annex III employment systems are used. National co-determination rules were not examined.
9.0Method and limitations
Reporting period: October 1, 2026 up to the data cutoff of October 26, 2026 at 1:00 PM GMT+1 (Berlin time). This topic report is published before the end of the month; sources published after the cutoff follow in the next edition of the series. Compiled: October 27, 2026 at 12:23 AM GMT+1. This is the first baseline. The sources come from different years; their publication dates are not events in the reporting month. No change from an earlier edition was measured.
The report uses only reviewed public original sources. Customer conversations, private dossiers and personal customer assessments are not inputs. Observed, model estimate, scenario and open describe the evidence for each finding. Source values retain their original units and baselines; they are not combined into an overall score.
Editorial approval: qasb editorial team · Approved: October 27, 2026 at 12:25 AM GMT+1. The editorial presentation arranges the reviewed statements and contains no figure that is not in them. Presentation approved by the qasb editorial team · October 27, 2026 at 2:27 PM GMT+1.
Limits
- This topic report covers one topic area: “Work”. It is not an exhaustive survey of all studies or incidents.
- A narrow study finding is not a forecast for a particular customer, occupation or security system.
- No qualified finding does not prove no effect; source-access gaps are disclosed separately.
- This report contains no illustrative measurement series or invented confidence rating.
10.0Sources
- 1Task Expansion with Generative AI: Experimental Evidence on Middle-Skilled, Early-Career Workersdigitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publication/task-expansion-with-generative-aiexperimental-evidence-on-middle-skilled-early-career-workers/
- 2Not Faster, but Better: Generative AI and Teacher Skill in Peru (Policy Research Working Paper 11476)documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099309210012625906/pdf/IDU-c261aadb-6c32-48af-a07c-9cff5e86c716.pdf
- 3Exposition des métiers à l’IA générative, adoption par les entreprises et dynamiques du marché du travail en France (LIFT Working Paper 2026-02)heclift.github.io/website/files/papers/LIFT_WP_2026-02.pdf
- 4The Early Impacts of AI on Employment among Recent College Graduates (NBER Working Paper 35796)www.nber.org/papers/w35796
- 5Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 8 October 2026www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/bulletins/businessinsightsandimpactontheukeconomy/8october2026
- 6East Asia and Pacific Economic Update, October 2026: Riding the AI Wavedocuments1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099839510062630534/pdf/IDU-eaea19eb-317c-4a27-8332-d217283ebd7a.pdf
- 7A Preliminary Analysis of the Impact of AI Assisted/Generated Code on Quality, Centrality and Review Time at Scaledrops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESEM.2026.93
- 8KI als Jobkiller für Berufseinsteiger? Entwarnung mit Vorbehaltiab-forum.de/ki-als-jobkiller-fuer-berufseinsteiger-entwarnung-mit-vorbehalt/
- 9Weshalb die meisten Betriebe Künstliche Intelligenz (noch) nicht nutzeniab-forum.de/weshalb-die-meisten-betriebe-kuenstliche-intelligenz-noch-nicht-nutzen/
- 10The Beige Book: Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District, October 2026www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BeigeBook_20261014.pdf
- 11AI Benefits at Work Unevenly Distributednews.gallup.com/poll/714602/benefits-work-unevenly-distributed.aspx
- 12The Effects of Generative AI on Collaboration and Social Networks Among Knowledge Workersarxiv.org/abs/2610.32461v1
- 13European employment and social outlook: annual review 2026, Chapter 2ec.europa.eu/employment_social/employment_analysis/esde/2026/Chapter%202.html
- 14Right Order, Wrong Scale: Auditing LLM Judges for Occupational AI Measurementarxiv.org/abs/2610.02492v1
- 15Young digital platform workers in Cambodia: Evidence and insightswww.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2026-10/26-001_Research%20Brief%20-%20Cambodia%20Youth%20DLP%20-%20Final.pdf
- 16Does AI Assistance Enhance or Erode Expertise? Evidence from a Three-Month Field Experiment in Patent Drafting (NBER Working Paper 35720)www.nber.org/papers/w35720
- 17AI on the Factory Floor: Evidence from Manufacturing Job Postingswww.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/ai-on-the-factory-floor-evidence-from-manufacturing-job-postings-20260930.html
- 18How Does AI Change Labor Demand? Evidence from 41 Countriesdigitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publication/how-does-ai-change-labor-demand/
- 19AI Adoption and Firm Size: Employment Effects in Monthly Administrative Data (Working Paper No. 223)www.nationalbanken.dk/en/news-and-knowledge/publications-and-speeches/working-paper/2026/ai-adoption-and-firm-size-employment-effects-in-monthly-administrative-data
- 20Associations of artificial intelligence use at work with psychological distress, loneliness, and life satisfaction among employed US adultsdoi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2026.103640
- 21Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 July 2026 amending Regulations (EU) 2024/1689, (EU) 2018/1139 and (EU) 2023/1230 as regards the simplification of the implementation of harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Digital Omnibus on AI)eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2026/1744/oj
- 22Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act)eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj
Authors, reuse basis and rights records
- 1Stanford Digital Economy Lab (Working Paper, zugleich IZA Discussion Paper 18999); Hanna Brosch, Christina Langer, Philipp Lergetporer, Sandra Mueller, Harald Pfeifer & Nele Tschöpe · Reuse basis: All rights reserved (© Stanford University; terms allow downloads for personal, non-commercial use only); our own factual paraphrase and link only, no figures · Rights and license record
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- 7Audris Mockus, Peter C. Rigby, Don Stewart, Chandra Maddila & Nachiappan Nagappan (Meta Platforms; University of Tennessee; Concordia University); ESEM 2026, LIPIcs Bd. 394, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik · Reuse basis: CC BY 4.0; our own paraphrase and link only, no figures · Rights and license record
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- 10Federal Reserve System (Board of Governors); erstellt bei der Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia · Reuse basis: Public domain according to the Federal Reserve Board website policy (citation requested); our own paraphrase with attribution and link, no figures or third-party data reproduced · Rights and license record
- 11Gallup, Inc.; Jeffrey M. Jones (American Job Quality Study mit Jobs for the Future und The Families & Workers Fund) · Reuse basis: All rights reserved (© 2026 Gallup, Inc.); citing individual findings with attribution and a link to the original article is provided for in Gallup Permissions; no continuous reproduction of content, no graphics; our own factual paraphrase and link only · Rights and license record
- 12Giuseppe Soda, Alessandro Iorio & Leonardo Rizzo (Università Bocconi, SDA Bocconi); arXiv-Preprint 2610.32461v1 · Reuse basis: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; our own paraphrase and link only, no figures, no adaptation of the original · Rights and license record
- 13Europäische Kommission, Generaldirektion Beschäftigung, Soziales und Integration (DG EMPL); Daten der AIM-WORK-Befragung von DG EMPL und Gemeinsamer Forschungsstelle · Reuse basis: Reuse under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU, content under CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise stated; our own paraphrase with attribution, no charts; the Commission is not responsible for this interpretation · Rights and license record
- 14Harry Lyu & Neil Thompson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); arXiv-Preprint 2610.02492v1 · Reuse basis: CC BY 4.0; our own paraphrase and link only, no figures · Rights and license record
- 15Internationale Arbeitsorganisation (ILO), Research Brief; Jong Eun Oh & Phu Huynh · Reuse basis: CC BY 4.0 (© ILO 2026, as stated in the document); our own paraphrase with attribution and link, no figures · Rights and license record
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- 18Stanford Digital Economy Lab (Working Paper); Bharat Chandar (Stanford University) & Bouke Klein Teeselink (King’s College London) · Reuse basis: All rights reserved (© Stanford University; terms allow downloads for personal, non-commercial use only); our own factual paraphrase and link only, no figures · Rights and license record
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- 20Jemar R. Bather, Adolfo G. Cuevas, Melody S. Goodman & José A. Pagán (NYU School of Global Public Health); Preventive Medicine Reports (Elsevier) · Reuse basis: CC BY 4.0; our own paraphrase and link only, no figures · Rights and license record
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How to cite
qasb Research (2026). AI and work: signs of weaker entry opportunities. Topic report 10/2026, data cutoff October 26, 2026. https://www.qasb.ai/en/reports/2026-10-arbeit
Appendix
For every statement: evidence type, change status, scope and limitations, and the observation period, source value, comparison and uncertainty where the source gives them. The texts are the approved entries of the edition, as is its summary.
Scope and limitations of all 22 statements (A1–A22)
Edition summary
October’s evidence shows no broad employment collapse in AI-exposed occupations, but several mostly descriptive signs of weaker entry opportunities: in Germany full-time employment, and in France permanent hiring, of young people in highly exposed occupations developed less favourably, companies adopting AI shifted their workforce towards senior positions, and Danish AI users with fewer than 100 full-time equivalents hired less, while US data on recent graduates and UK business reports show little effect. Experiments show performance gains with AI support for IT apprentices and patent lawyers but no measurable time savings for teachers in Lima; without AI, only experienced patent lawyers benefited; surveys link AI use with better jobs, more responsibility and more frequent loneliness without establishing cause and effect. Causal evidence on wages and health is missing, as are October studies on social partners, health care, the creative industries and customer service; after an amendment in July 2026, the AI Act’s high-risk obligations for employment systems apply only from December 2027.
- Scope
- Representative survey of workers in all EU Member States (AIM-WORK, the Commission’s DG Employment and Joint Research Centre, 2024–2025); Commission analysis by three job-quality clusters; covers conscious use of AI tools, mainly chatbots.
- Limitations
- Cross-sectional data showing the distribution of use, not an effect of AI on job quality. Possible strains (cognitive offloading, fewer learning opportunities for entry-level workers) are discussed in the same chapter mainly on the basis of other studies; these were not adopted here as findings. Sample size not stated in the chapter.
- Observation period
- Fieldwork 2024 to 2025
- Source value
- 35.3 Percent of workers in better-quality jobs using AI at work
- Baseline
- EU average: 29.9%
- Comparison
- Lower earnings and security: 16.9%; atypical and longer working times: 19.3%
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported in the source
- Scope
- IAB Establishment Panel, survey in the second half of 2025, firm responses; occupational AI exposure derived from firms’ occupational mix in mid-2022 following Eloundou et al. (2024), grouped from lowest to highest exposure; about two thirds of all firms neither used nor planned to use AI.
- Limitations
- Firm self-reports; exposure describes the technical potential of the occupational mix, not suitability in the individual firm. According to the author, agentic AI systems have broadened possible uses since the survey, so assessments may change. Sample size not stated in the article; IAB-Forum article without peer review.
- Observation period
- Second half of 2025
- Source value
- 41 Percent of firms with the highest occupational AI exposure that used AI
- Baseline
- Firms with the lowest exposure: 13%
- Comparison
- Seeing no possible application among firms neither using nor planning AI: 85% at highest and 91% at lowest exposure
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported in the source
- Scope
- Audit of 33 existing judge configurations from six model families on 4,501 test ratings; the reference is a US survey of 45,796 ratings by participants with experience in the chosen occupation (recruited via Prolific); acceptance threshold 7 on a nine-point scale.
- Limitations
- English-language text responses for US occupations only; the reference comes from online respondents and is not representative of all workers. It measures the validity of model judgements, not actual automation or employment effects. Preprint under review.
- Observation period
- Survey data snapshot of 18 August 2026
- Source value
- 61.1 Percent of AI responses rated acceptable by workers in the occupation
- Baseline
- Worker judgement (threshold 7 of 9)
- Comparison
- Language-model judges: 3.0% to 97.9% (median 43.9%)
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported for these shares in the source
- Scope
- Monthly employment data from the Federal Employment Agency, January 2021 to December 2025; on average about 22.3 million full-time employees subject to social insurance aged 20–64 (excluding civil servants, the self-employed, those only in marginal jobs and apprentices); AI exposure following Eloundou et al. (2024), mapped to KldB 2010 occupational groups; Poisson regressions also accounting for suitability for working from home and cyclical vulnerability.
- Limitations
- The authors regard the findings as purely descriptive. Accounting for working-from-home suitability and cyclical vulnerability, the negative association for 20–29-year-olds is not significant (about 1.8% less favourable per standard deviation of exposure in 2025), while the association with the economic downturn is more than twice as strong; it is significantly negative only in manufacturing and non-academic occupations. Exposure measures potential, not actual AI use; IAB-Forum article without peer review.
- Observation period
- January 2021 to December 2025 (2025 annual average versus 2022)
- Source value
- -3.8 Percent change in full-time employment of 20–29-year-olds in highly AI-exposed occupations, 2025 versus 2022
- Baseline
- 2022 annual average
- Comparison
- Less exposed occupations: −2.6%
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty given for the unadjusted changes; according to the source the adjusted association is not statistically significant
- Scope
- Administrative labour-movement data (Dares, MMO) for the French private sector excluding agriculture, temporary agency work and private households, January 2019 to March 2026; exposure index built from more than 1,500 France Travail occupation descriptions rated by a language model; plus about 6,000 firms reporting their AI use in early 2026.
- Limitations
- Descriptive analysis without causal identification: monetary tightening, the post-pandemic correction in IT and other factors affect the same occupations. The index measures technical substitution or assistance potential, not actual use. Firms with intensive AI use hired relatively fewer young people on permanent contracts, but their total employment did not diverge clearly. Working paper without peer review; the PDF states only “October 2026”, and the date follows the companion Banque de France note.
- Observation period
- January 2019 to March 2026 (reference month November 2022)
- Source value
- -28 Percent relative to November 2022 (CDI hires of 21–29-year-olds in the most exposed occupation quintile, seasonally adjusted and smoothed)
- Baseline
- November 2022 level
- Comparison
- Least exposed quintile: about −8%
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported in the source for these descriptive series
- Scope
- Statistics Denmark IT usage survey (about 4,000 firms with at least 10 employees) linked to monthly employer–employee register data; each firm compared with its own pre-2023 employment trend; overall, adopters fell about 11% behind comparable non-adopters by late 2025, driven entirely by firms with fewer than 100 full-time equivalents; Danmarks Nationalbank working paper.
- Limitations
- The authors explicitly do not claim causal effects, as AI use and employment are likely jointly determined by firm strategy; they also note that AI-exposed occupations began deteriorating before ChatGPT. So far hardly visible economy-wide; with annual balance-sheet data the effects would not be detectable (confidence band roughly −8% to +5%). Working paper without peer review.
- Observation period
- 2022 to late 2025 (2023 adoption cohort)
- Source value
- 25 Percent below trend in employment in AI-exposed occupations at AI adopters (late 2025)
- Baseline
- Own pre-2023 employment trend
- Comparison
- Other occupations: 7% below trend; all occupations combined: about 11% behind comparable non-adopters
- Uncertainty
- Significant according to the source; confidence intervals shown only in figures
- Scope
- Revelio Labs data with 1.25 billion job postings and 154 million employment records, monthly panel January 2021 to March 2026; AI adoption inferred from job postings involving generative AI; matched control affiliates in the same country and sector, instrumented with AI adoption by other parent companies in the headquarters’ metropolitan area.
- Limitations
- Based on online profiles and postings from one data provider, with coverage varying by country; identification assumes the instrument works only through AI adoption. Total employment rose with only marginal significance (3.3%); in country-by-country estimates the junior-share decline was significant in only seven of 31 countries. Working paper without peer review.
- Observation period
- January 2021 to March 2026
- Source value
- -1.9 Percentage points of junior positions in employment (March 2026)
- Baseline
- Comparable control affiliates without AI adoption
- Comparison
- Senior employment: +6.7%; junior employment: −2.5% (not significant)
- Uncertainty
- Confidence intervals shown only in the source’s figures; not reproduced here
- Scope
- Current Population Survey (CPS) microdata, June–August 2026 compared with summers 2022–2025; difference-in-differences and event-study models with older college graduates (aged 30–49) and young non-graduates as comparison groups; US only.
- Limitations
- Measures unemployment, not hiring or AI use; short period. An expanded measure including people outside the labour force who want a job was the highest of the five summers in 2026 at 10.4%, but did not show a significant increase either. Working paper without peer review; first published on 28 September 2026 according to NBER metadata.
- Observation period
- June–August 2026 (comparison: summers 2022–2025)
- Source value
- 7.3 Percent unemployment rate (June–August 2026 average)
- Baseline
- Summer 2022: 7.1%; 2023: 6.3%; 2024: 7.8%; 2025: 7.2%
- Comparison
- Older college graduates (aged 30–49): 2.8% (summer 2025: 2.7%)
- Uncertainty
- Summer 2026 coefficients in the DiD and event-study models not statistically significant
- Scope
- Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), wave 165, fieldwork 21 September to 4 October 2026, 9,933 responses (25.7% response rate); weighted estimates; base: AI-using businesses with 10 or more employees.
- Limitations
- Business self-reports, not measured employment change and no counterfactual without AI; official statistics in development from a voluntary survey; shares apply only to AI-using businesses. Naming a role as “most affected” does not mean jobs were cut there.
- Observation period
- September 2026 (fieldwork 21 September to 4 October 2026)
- Source value
- 6 Percent of AI-using businesses with 10 or more employees
- Baseline
- All AI-using businesses with 10 or more employees
- Comparison
- Fewer than 1% reported more staff as a result of adopting AI
- Uncertainty
- Weighted estimate; no confidence intervals in the bulletin text
- Scope
- Qualitative reports from businesses and other contacts of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, collected up to 5 October 2026; District reports include banking contacts with lower staffing needs due to automation and AI, IT staffing contacts reporting less job creation, and one accounting contact saying that some large accounting firms were delaying contracts for entry-level hires.
- Limitations
- Contacts are not selected at random; qualitative assessments with no count of affected jobs. The summary does not name the five Districts; IT staffing contacts explicitly said AI was not causing layoffs. The Beige Book does not represent the views of Federal Reserve officials.
- Observation period
- Information collected up to 5 October 2026 (changes since the previous report)
- Source value
- 5 Federal Reserve Districts (of 12) reporting AI-related lower staffing, delayed hiring or less expected job creation
- Baseline
- All 12 Districts
- Comparison
- Overall employment: 3 Districts modest, 5 slight increases, 4 no significant change
- Uncertainty
- Qualitative contact reports; no uncertainty measure
- Scope
- Cambodia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines and Thailand; Lightcast job postings from the first quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2025; event study relative to the quarter before ChatGPT's release (third quarter of 2022), occupations above versus below the median of an AI automatability index; method following Huang et al. (2026).
- Limitations
- The World Bank stresses that the estimates cannot be interpreted as causal. Online postings cover only part of hiring, especially where the informal sector is large. The comparison figure for high-income countries (−5.8%) comes from a cited study and was not checked independently here.
- Observation period
- Q1 2018 to Q2 2025
- Scope
- Lightcast online job-posting data for US manufacturing with advertised wages, through July 2026; AI skills defined following Acemoglu et al. (2022); most recently 11% of manufacturing postings required AI-related skills (all sectors: 8%); production occupations (SOC 51) shown separately.
- Limitations
- Descriptive, unadjusted wage differences; according to the source they may reflect differences in position type, location and employer, and the small number of AI postings is volatile. Postings show required rather than actual skills and only positions advertised online; FEDS Notes present the author’s own views.
- Observation period
- Posting sample period through July 2026
- Source value
- 70 Percent higher advertised wages in manufacturing postings requiring AI skills than in all manufacturing postings (period average)
- Baseline
- All US manufacturing online job postings
- Comparison
- Production occupations: about 30% since 2023
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported; according to the source, substantial volatility due to small numbers
- Scope
- Twelve vocational schools in six German states; IT specialists in application development and system integration; individual random assignment to ChatGPT Pro with internet access or an exam-like condition without internet; occupation-specific tasks during school hours.
- Limitations
- The comparison is with a no-internet condition, not with internet search alone; the authors note the effect may be overstated relative to normal working conditions. Test tasks rather than on-the-job work; open answers were graded by a language model against a fixed rubric. Nothing on employment, wages or long-term skill development; working paper without peer review.
- Observation period
- October 2025 to January 2026
- Source value
- 30.6 Percentage points (share of points achieved, task “Beyond 2” beyond the curriculum)
- Baseline
- No-internet control group: 42.3% of attainable points
- Comparison
- Group with ChatGPT access (intention-to-treat, with controls)
- Uncertainty
- Standard error 2.0 percentage points (heteroskedasticity-robust); p < 0.01
- Scope
- Random assignment of access to a custom AI assistant that was not released as a standalone product; benchmark drafting tasks after 10 and 90 days, then redlining a patent application without AI; scoring by blinded expert patent attorneys; study period May 2025 to February 2026.
- Limitations
- Small sample, and the junior subgroup is smaller still, so its estimates are less precise; the firms work for a sophisticated client and are not representative. No baseline skills assessment; only three months. The study was conducted and funded by Google (possible conflict of interest); working paper without peer review.
- Observation period
- May 2025 to February 2026
- Source value
- 0.38 Standard deviations higher quality on benchmark drafting tasks after 90 days
- Baseline
- Control group without the AI assistant
- Comparison
- After 10 days: 0.34; review task without AI: 0.32 overall, 0.45 among experienced lawyers
- Uncertainty
- p = 0.01 (90 days), p = 0.03 (10 days)
- Scope
- 390 public schools in Metropolitan Lima (196 treatment, 194 control), school year 2025; time use from an endline survey (607 respondents), prompt quality graded with two rubrics (562 observations); tool: Microsoft Copilot.
- Limitations
- Time data are self-reported (duration of the most recent instance) and available for just under half of the teachers; pupil outcomes were not measured. The study was funded in part by the Microsoft AI Economy Institute and examined Microsoft Copilot (possible conflict of interest). Working paper without peer review.
- Observation period
- School year 2025 (programme period of about 28 weeks; endline survey in December 2025)
- Source value
- 0.375 Points on a 5-point prompt-quality rubric (designed independently of the training)
- Baseline
- Control group: 3.374 points
- Comparison
- Treatment group (intention-to-treat)
- Uncertainty
- Standard error 0.086; p < 0.01
- Scope
- More than 10,000 developers and about 400,000 code changes at Meta; character-level provenance tracking of suggestions from the code-completion tool CodeCompose to landed code; about two months of data from spring 2025; peer-reviewed conference paper (ESEM 2026).
- Limitations
- Observational data without random assignment; the authors warn that naive comparisons attribute the context of AI use to AI itself and do not treat the associations as evidence of a causal effect. Provenance data were available for only about half of the changes in the period; completion-based AI only, before agentic tools; one company. The authors are Meta employees studying an in-house tool (possible conflict of interest).
- Observation period
- Spring 2025 (about two months)
- Scope
- Passively collected behavioural data (Microsoft Viva Insights) on 11,868 knowledge workers in one business unit, including 1,992 sustained users above a minimum threshold, September 2024 to September 2025; staggered difference-in-differences and instrumental-variable models.
- Limitations
- One business unit of one company; averaged over all event times and cohorts, the effect on collaboration time is not significant (0.95 hours; 95% confidence interval −0.19 to 2.08). Conversation content is not observed, so explanations such as checking AI outputs, discussing the tool or reinvesting saved time remain open; only the first three months; use was not randomly assigned. Preprint without peer review.
- Observation period
- September 2024 to September 2025
- Source value
- 1.43 Hours of self-initiated collaboration time per month (average of the first three months after adoption)
- Baseline
- Non-users in the same business unit (9,876 employees)
- Comparison
- Users after adoption (staggered difference-in-differences estimate)
- Uncertainty
- 95% confidence interval 0.45 to 2.41 hours
- Scope
- Official Journal texts of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Article 26(7), Annex III point 4, Chapter III Section 3) and the amending Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of 8 July 2026 (new Article 4, amended Article 113); directly applicable in all EU Member States.
- Limitations
- Legal position, not a measured effect; whether and how employers support AI literacy and inform workers is not documented. Under the Regulation, the information duty follows Union and national rules on informing workers; national co-determination rules were not examined here. Older than the reporting period and included as context only.
- Observation period
- Legal position as of October 2026 (amending Regulation published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026)
- Scope
- Year two of the American Job Quality Study by Gallup with Jobs for the Future and The Families & Workers Fund; web and mail survey from 26 January to 24 March 2026; 15,482 employees aged 18–75 from the Gallup Panel and an address-based random sample, weighted; effects reported by 7,845 employees who had used AI in their job at least a few times in the past year.
- Limitations
- Self-assessments, not measured productivity; the source notes employers might judge the effects differently. More responsibility can mean upgrading or work intensification, and the survey does not distinguish them. Frequent users more often hold quality jobs (52% versus 32% of non-users); cause and effect remain open. The article now links to the full year-two report, which was not checked here.
- Observation period
- 26 January to 24 March 2026
- Source value
- 63 Percent of AI-using US employees reporting faster task completion
- Baseline
- All employees who used AI in the past year
- Comparison
- Regular users: 79%; irregular users: 38%
- Uncertainty
- Margin of sampling error ±2 percentage points (95% confidence) for AI users
- Scope
- AIM-WORK survey 2024–2025 in all EU Member States, Commission analysis by three job-quality clusters; in the cluster with atypical working times (including drivers and sales workers), algorithmic evaluation affected 48.3% in Spain and 47.4% in Portugal.
- Limitations
- Cross-sectional; algorithmic management also covers systems without AI. The Commission refers to other studies for possible links with stress, work pace and reduced autonomy, which are not measured here. Platform workers are not shown separately.
- Observation period
- Fieldwork 2024 to 2025
- Source value
- 28.2 Percent of workers subject to algorithmic evaluation (EU average)
- Baseline
- EU average
- Comparison
- Jobs with atypical and longer working times: 31.9%
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported in the source
- Scope
- US Census Bureau Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey, 13–30 March 2026; 6,238 employed adults, weighted to 152 million; AI use measured as the number of eleven possible assisted work tasks, standardised; models adjusted for sociodemographics, region, occupation and telework.
- Limitations
- Cross-sectional, no causal conclusion; reverse causation is possible, for example if lonely workers turn to AI more often. Self-reports; workplace social interaction and work intensity were not measured.
- Observation period
- 13–30 March 2026
- Source value
- 1.13 Adjusted prevalence ratio for feeling lonely per standard deviation more AI use
- Baseline
- Workers with one standard deviation less AI use (model comparison)
- Comparison
- Life satisfaction: +0.11 standard deviations (95% confidence interval 0.06 to 0.16)
- Uncertainty
- 95% confidence interval 1.02 to 1.25
- Scope
- Survey in the second half of 2025 as part of an ILO diagnostic study on working conditions and social security in platform work; young workers made up 42.9% of respondents and 75.7% of delivery riders.
- Limitations
- According to the ILO, the sample is not nationally representative; self-reports. The study measures neither algorithmic management nor the platforms’ use of AI; it describes working conditions in app-based platform work; no comparison group outside platform work.
- Observation period
- Second half of 2025
- Source value
- 27.1 Percent of young platform workers reporting a work-related injury
- Baseline
- Older platform workers (aged 31 and over): 19.3%
- Comparison
- Young delivery riders: 36.3%
- Uncertainty
- No uncertainty reported in the source

