# Employment of 22-25-year-olds in the two most AI-exposed occupation quintiles fell about 11% from November 2022 to June 2026, while the least-exposed quintiles grew about 10%

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20260812-junior-software-developer-3
Date: 2026-08-12 · Stage: Labour impact
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/junior-software-developer

## Scope

Systems software developers rank 7th by employment among the highest-exposure quintile in the paper's appendix, and software development is among the occupations the authors show as case studies in the online appendix, as is customer service. US private-sector payroll records from ADP covering millions of workers, November 2022 to June 2026. The 11% fall is for 22-25-year-olds in the two most AI-exposed quintiles; the same age group in the three least-exposed quintiles grew about 10%. Experienced workers show no comparable gap, and the authors state they find no evidence of widespread, economy-wide displacement. The findings are descriptive, not causal, and are measured at occupation level, not task level.

## Source

- Stanford Digital Economy Lab — Brynjolfsson, Chandar & Chen, "Canaries in the Coal Mine?" (August 2026) — https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/app/uploads/2026/08/Canaries_August2026.pdf (primary source)

## What this means

The adjustment is at the door, not inside the building. Experienced workers in the same occupations show no gap, and the mechanism the authors find is reduced hiring rather than people being let go — which means the ladder is being pulled up before anyone is pushed off it. For this occupation that matters more than a headline displacement number, though the paper measures occupations, not which of a junior's tasks moved.

## What it does not show yet

It is not a causal estimate and the authors say so; the timing is suggestive, not dispositive, and business-cycle explanations remain on the table. It is also occupation-level: the paper measures who is on payroll, not which tasks moved. And its headline is that there is no widespread displacement — the same dataset that shows an 11% fall for 22-25-year-olds in the most exposed quintiles finds no economy-wide displacement.

## How to verify it yourself

Look at your own team or your target employer and count two numbers: how many people with under two years of experience were hired in the last twelve months, and how many in the twelve months before that. A shortfall shows up as an absence of new names, not as departures, so headcount alone will not reveal it.


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt