---
title: "The Early Impacts of AI on Employment among Recent College Graduates · AI Fault Line"
url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-a848882fa027ff93/
description: "AI Fault Line is a neutral, evidence-cited field guide to why experts looking at the same developments disagree about AI's effect on productivity, jobs, inequality, regulation and the pace of change."
---

[Research](https://aifaultline.com/research/)

# The Early Impacts of AI on Employment among Recent College Graduates

Robert W. Fairlie, Jane Wu · NBER Working Papers · September 2026

[Read original source](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35796)

Where this sits in the debate

- [Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/)

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)).

## Abstract

The impact of AI on the employment prospects of recent college graduates is hotly debated with no consensus on the magnitude of impacts nor even the timing of those potential impacts. Using CPS microdata, we provide the first estimates of the effects of AI on the unemployment of recent college

## About this publication

**Working paper.** A working paper — circulated for discussion before formal peer review, the standard first outlet in economics.

Published

2026

Citations

Not recorded for this source

Citation counts come from OpenAlex; none are recorded for this source — absence of a count is not absence of citations.

[Chart: published 2026]

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