External signal·Stanford Digital Economy Lab·Feb 9, 2026·Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, Ruyu Chen·9 min read
Canaries, Interest Rates, and Timing: More on the Recent Drivers of Employment Changes for Young Workers
“these employment changes bear close monitoring”
Summary
A follow-up to the authors' "Canaries in the Coal Mine" paper, addressing two challenges to its finding that young workers in AI-exposed occupations have seen relative employment declines. First, interest rates do not explain it — AI-exposed jobs are, on average, less sensitive to interest rates. Second, under the most stringent controls (firm-time fixed effects) the decline for the most-exposed 22-25-year-olds becomes statistically significant only from 2024, so earlier declines likely reflect other factors too. The authors stress AI is not the sole determinant, but note the gap reached about 16% by October 2025, up from 13%, with no reversal.
Predictions for the future of work
Holds that the entry-level employment gap in AI-exposed work is real, widening, and not explained away by interest rates, while explicitly refusing mono-causal AI attribution. The forward stance is continued monitoring of whether the trend persists, strengthens, or reverses.
Originally published by Stanford Digital Economy Lab · Feb 9, 2026
Read the original at Stanford Digital Economy Lab