A new study by Yale University has found no major disruption in the job market following the rapid rise of artificial intelligence tools. The research, titled ‘Evaluating the Impact of AI on the Labor Market: Current State of Affairs’, concludes that despite widespread fears, AI has not yet led to large-scale job losses in the United States.
The report from Yale’s Budget Lab, a policy research centre led by Martha Gimbel, Molly Kinder, Joshua Kendall, and Maddie Lee, found that while discussions about AI replacing human workers have intensified since 2022, the evidence does not yet support those claims, according to a report by The Guardian.
“While anxiety over the effects of AI on today’s labor market is widespread, our data suggests it remains largely speculative,” the researchers wrote.
No major impact on job market… yet
The study analysed employment data, the occupational mix of workers, and how different groups have been exposed to AI technology over the past 33 months. The findings show that although job roles linked to AI are evolving, the overall shift in the labour market has been modest.
Drawing comparisons to previous technological revolutions, the researchers noted that major disruptions often take years to unfold.
“Computers didn’t become commonplace in offices until nearly a decade after their release to the public,” the report said, adding that the true impact of AI could similarly take longer than 33 months to appear.
The study compared job trends since 2022 with those seen in earlier periods, 1984 to 1989, 1996 to 2002, and 2016 to 2019, and found that the changes were “not out of the ordinary.” It also highlighted that the shifts have been slower than those seen in the 1940s and 1950s, when World War II drove a complete restructuring of the job market.
The analysis revealed that sectors like Information, Financial Activities, and Professional and Business Services have experienced slightly more movement in their job mix. Of these, the Information sector, which includes media, entertainment, and data processing, showed the greatest exposure to AI.
What about college graduates?
The researchers also examined employment patterns among recent college graduates aged 20–24 and compared them with workers aged 25–34. If AI were reshaping the job market significantly, the occupational differences between these two groups would likely have widened after 2022.
However, the data showed that dissimilarity between the two groups has remained steady, ranging between 30 per cent and 33 per cent, a trend that predates the release of ChatGPT.
The bigger picture
Overall, the study found that while AI continues to evolve rapidly, its impact on employment across the broader economy remains limited.
“The picture of AI’s impact on the labor market that emerges from our data is one that largely reflects stability, not major disruption at an economy-wide level,” the report concluded.
The researchers, however, cautioned that their findings might underestimate potential disruption, since exposure-based analysis does not fully capture real AI usage across industries. They added that more comprehensive data, from AI developers and enterprises alike, will be crucial to accurately measure the technology’s long-term effects.