Occupational exposure to generative AI, firm adoption and labor market dynamics in France
LIFT Working Paper 2026-02 — October 2026
This paper studies how employment in France evolves with occupations’ exposure to generative artificial intelligence and with workers’ age. We build a new index that ranks occupations from least to most exposed, then draw on comprehensive administrative data on hires and separations between January 2019 and March 2026. Since November 2022, the month of ChatGPT’s public launch, both hires and separations on open-ended contracts have fallen more in the most exposed occupations, especially among young people. These trends point to a kind of freeze in labor turnover for new entrants in exposed occupations, with fewer entries and fewer exits. The result also holds among firms that report intensive use of AI: their hiring of young people on open-ended contracts declines relative to other firms, with no clear divergence in the evolution of their total employment compared with other firms. The main results are presented in short form in LIFT Policy Paper 2026-02.
ai, france, employment, labor market
This paper studies how employment in France evolves with occupations’ exposure to generative artificial intelligence and with workers’ age. We build a new index that ranks occupations from least to most exposed, then draw on comprehensive administrative data on hires and separations between January 2019 and March 2026. Since November 2022, the month of ChatGPT’s public launch, both hires and separations on open-ended contracts have fallen more in the most exposed occupations, especially among young people. These trends point to a kind of freeze in labor turnover for new entrants in exposed occupations, with fewer entries and fewer exits. The result also holds among firms that report intensive use of AI: their hiring of young people on open-ended contracts declines relative to other firms, with no clear divergence in the evolution of their total employment compared with other firms. The main results are presented in short form in LIFT Policy Paper 2026-02.
PDF in French