Automation in the Wake of GenAI: Implications for Firm Training

Christian Gschwendt and Claudio Schilter

No 252, Economics of Education Working Paper Series from University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Abstract: Generative AI (GenAI) adoption is spreading rapidly and reshaping work, yet its implications for firms' training decisions remain largely unexplored. This paper examines how automation in the post-GenAI era affects firms' entry-level training positions using a vignette experiment with recruiters at over 2,800 Swiss firms, covering more than 100 distinct occupations. Firms plan to reduce training positions in response to automation prospects, with larger reductions the greater the expected automated task share and the earlier the expected implementation. Effects are markedly stronger in routine-intensive and AI-exposed occupations, as well as among large firms. Our experiment allows us to disentangle an "erosion of the training pipeline," where firms reduce training even though demand for trained specialists remains, from an overall decline in occupational labor demand. We find that pipeline erosion accounts for less than one third of the average reduction in training, but substantially more when automation is particularly intensive - measured by a high share of tasks being automated - and in routine-intensive and AI-exposed occupations. Overall, the results suggest that GenAI adoption is likely to reallocate firms' human capital investment with potential downstream implications for early career formation, and to reinforce labor market de-routinization trends.

Keywords: Automation; firm training; technological change; generative AI; artificial intelligence; entry-level employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 M53 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2026-03
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:educat:0252

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