New research from Stanford University economists indicates that artificial intelligence is causing significant entry-level job losses for younger workers. Older workers remain largely unaffected so far.
The August 2026 edition of Canaries in the Coal Mine updates a paper published last year. Researchers found that employment levels for workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations are 19 percent below those in less exposed fields.
The study used anonymized payroll data from ADP. Researchers evaluated job exposure using previous labor market impact gauges and the Anthropic Economic Index. Overall economy-wide employment showed little difference between affected and unaffected jobs. For workers aged 22 to 25, employment in the top 40 percent of AI-impacted jobs fell by about 11 percent since 2022. Employment grew by 10 percent in the least impacted jobs over the same period.
The phenomenon manifests primarily through lower hiring rates rather than increased firings or voluntary quits. Labor market effects appear as lower overall employment rather than reduced pay rates.
Anthropic differentiates between automative tasks and augmentative tasks. Jobs where AI automation is prevalent show the worst relative employment levels for entry-level workers. Occupations with higher codified knowledge showed slower entry-level employment growth.
Lead researcher Erik Brynjolfsson warned that current trends point toward a future where pre-AI era jobs persist while careers for incoming workers disappear. The next known step is the ongoing monitoring of these labor market data updates by the Stanford research team.
