The breakthrough launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 sparked widespread questions about artificial intelligence and the future of work. How would generative AI reshape jobs and industries? Would certain roles become obsolete? How should education and training programs prepare workers for an AI-integrated workplace? To understand AI’s actual labor market impact, researchers examined unemployment patterns and hiring trends in AI-exposed occupations between 2022 and 2024 in a new study. Their findings suggest that labor market shifts in those fields began earlier than ChatGPT’s high-profile arrival might suggest.
As part of their analysis, the researchers classified computer and math occupations as most exposed to potential AI automation. Drawing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ O*NET database, they measured exposure based on tasks like writing, coding, and information synthesis that generative AI tools could theoretically assist with or perform. Construction, food service, and transportation were rated as the least exposed under this framework.
Using monthly unemployment insurance records from 2015 through 2024, the study tracked unemployment risk across occupational groups and states. They found that unemployment risk for AI-exposed occupations began rising in early 2022, months before ChatGPT’s November launch. Post-launch, unemployment risk stabilized at this higher level rather than accelerating across most states.
Analysis of over 10 million LinkedIn profiles of recent graduates told a similar story. Graduates from 2021 and 2022 entered AI-exposed jobs at lower rates than previous classes. They also spent more time before landing these positions, reversing the historical pattern where graduates entering AI-exposed roles found jobs more quickly than their peers. As with the unemployment risk trends, these patterns preceded ChatGPT’s launch.
These challenges for recent college graduates fit within a larger trend. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland shows that job-finding rates for young college graduates overall have been declining since 2000, narrowing the employment advantage they have historically had over high school graduates. The unemployment gap between the two groups recently reached its lowest level since the late 1970s, driven by college graduates’ weakening position rather than high school graduates faring worse. Not all is grim for today’s college graduate job searcher, however. College graduates still experience lower job separation rates and higher wages once hired, despite the greater difficulty in their initial job search.
The AI study suggests multiple economic forces shaping the 2022-2024 period, including a tech-sector hiring correction following pandemic-era expansion and other broader post-pandemic labor-market adjustments. The Federal Reserve’s findings, however, suggest these recent pressures compounded longer-term structural shifts rather than representing an entirely new pattern for college graduates.
While the data may not show any immediate labor market shock following ChatGPT’s launch, the technology’s integration into workplace workflows continues to evolve and spread, and its longer-term effects on employment remain an open question.
Read the new study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh on unemployment patterns and hiring trends in AI-exposed occupations between 2022 and 2024 here.
This page was prepared by SSTI using Federal funds under award ED22HDQ3070129 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the U.S. Department of Commerce.