AI-exposed jobs deteriorated before ChatGPT
This research addresses the timing of AI's impact on labor markets, showing effects predate generative AI, which is important for policymakers and workers.
The study found that job prospects in AI-exposed occupations deteriorated starting in early 2022, months before ChatGPT's release, with unemployment risk rising and fewer graduates entering these jobs. It also showed that graduates with AI-exposed curricula had higher pay and shorter job searches after ChatGPT.
Public debate links worsening job prospects for AI-exposed occupations to the release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Using monthly U.S. unemployment insurance records, we measure occupation- and location-specific unemployment risk and find that risk rose in AI-exposed occupations beginning in early 2022, months before ChatGPT. Analyzing millions of LinkedIn profiles, we show that graduate cohorts from 2021 onward entered AI-exposed jobs at lower rates than earlier cohorts, with gaps opening before late 2022. Finally, from millions of university syllabi, we find that graduates taking more AI-exposed curricula had higher first-job pay and shorter job searches after ChatGPT. Together, these results point to forces pre-dating generative AI and to the ongoing value of LLM-relevant education.