Labor Market Consequences of Generative AI: Early Evidence from Norway

Dennis Facius and Roberto Iacono

No 12752, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Does Generative AI displace early-career workers? We provide population-wide evidence from Norwegian administrative registers, 2015 through March 2025, exploiting the November 2022 release of ChatGPT as an availability shock. Using the within-firm composition difference-in-differences employed in recent work, supplemented with a synthetic difference-in-differences at the occupation level and a firm-level shift-share design, we find no robust evidence of employment displacement among young workers in highly AI-exposed occupations, nor any robust response across other age cohorts or on incumbent labor-market outcomes. While estimated coefficients for young workers are negative, in line with the existing literature, they are small and statistically insignificant. A backdating exercise on the synthetic difference-in-differences yields larger absolute estimates than the actual treatment date across most age bands. This suggests the apparent post-2022 decline reflects, at least in part, pre-existing secular trends rather than a clean AI-period break.

Keywords: generative artificial intelligence; large language models; automation; labor demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J24 J31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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