We mapped AI capabilities to roughly 800 occupations and grouped them into high, medium, and low AI-exposure categories, then specifically examined activity among 22- to 26-year-old college graduates in each group. The patterns we found don’t line up with an AI-displacement story.
Recent college graduates frequently enter professional and cognitive occupations in which generative AI has relatively high task exposure. If AI were an important driver of recent labor market weakness, that weakness would be expected to be particularly pronounced in occupations highly exposed to AI.
Employment among recent graduates in occupations with high AI exposure is only modestly below its prepandemic trend. The bigger shortfall shows up in occupations with medium AI exposure, and that weakness started before the 2022 introduction of ChatGPT marked the public arrival of AI.
Meanwhile, low-AI-exposure employment has bounced back more strongly, helped along by teenagers leaving the labor force after a pandemic-era surge, freeing up leisure and hospitality positions for older recent graduates.