Artificial Intelligence and its impact on young people in the labor market
The debate about the impact of AI on the labor market has been going on for years, especially with regard to recent college graduates and young workers at the beginning of their careers. Recent studies have shown mixed results. While Eckhart and Goldschlag's team reported that AI had little impact on the overall unemployment rate and that the differences between the most and least exposed workers were very slight, between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points, Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen's study had radically different results.
Stagnant youth employment in technical occupations
The Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen study focused on the employment of twenty-two- to twenty-five-year-olds in occupations most affected by AI, such as software development and customer service, and found that this group experienced a six percent decline in employment from late 2022 through July 2025. In contrast, employment growth for older workers in the same occupations continued to grow by between six and nine percent, while workers in occupations less affected by AI saw similar growth for all ages. These findings suggest that the overall impact of AI on the labor market is still limited and that it is particularly concentrated on young workers at the beginning of their careers.
Contradictory studies and figures
Analyzing the data between studies shows a marked disparity. While the EIG study found no significant reduction in the unemployment rate among workers most exposed to AI, the Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen study found stagnant employment growth among 22- to 25-year-olds in tech-exposed occupations, while employment growth continued among older workers. These differences make it clear that AI has not yet reached a level where it poses a blanket threat to jobs, but it is beginning to affect specific segments of the workforce.
Media exaggeration and reality
Concern about AI and its impact on jobs is related to the emergence of tools such as chatbots and AI-enhanced programming techniques, which can reduce the need for certain low-tech skills. Some news reports tend to exaggerate, seeing any slowdown in employment as conclusive evidence that AI is "destroying jobs," while researchers caution against automatically associating any underperforming group with AI without careful analysis.
Limitations of current studies
An important limitation is that the impact of AI has often been measured via metrics such as the Felten 2021 scale or the Anthropic Economy Index, some of which may be inaccurate or measure the use of AI to improve performance rather than replace jobs. Studies have also focused on recent college graduates, while the impact of AI on other age groups has yet to be analyzed in the same detail. In addition, there has been no decline in wages despite changes in employment, suggesting that the overall demand for labor has not yet clearly declined.
Conclusion: Reality vs. Anxiety
Arguably, AI has not yet destroyed jobs, but it is starting to affect the employment prospects of young people in some technical and customer service occupations, while older workers are unaffected, and AI's complementary expertise and capabilities seem to offer relative protection. For now, concern about AI's impact on the labor market is overblown when linked to any small job decline directly to AI. The future is still open, and we still need to carefully monitor trends to see whether or not these effects will expand to broader categories of workers.
Contradictory studies: Is AI innocent of 'job destruction'?
