CESifo report finds no clear AI effect on graduate hiring

A report from CESifo finds no solid evidence that artificial intelligence has increased unemployment among recent graduates. The findings challenge the idea that AI is already making it harder for graduates to find work.

The report says median monthly AI spending per employee has doubled since the end of 2025, as firms move beyond experimentation. It still finds no meaningful effect on graduate unemployment. The authors caution that attributing unemployment to AI is difficult because other factors also shape the job market.

Graduate unemployment typically rises in summer, when many graduates enter the labor market, and falls again in autumn. Average summer unemployment among graduates has ranged from 6.3% to 7.8% since 2022, before ChatGPT's public preview launch.

The researchers say employment patterns in roles most exposed to AI have shifted, but not enough to conclude statistically that AI is replacing younger workers. The report also finds a correlation between graduate unemployment and remote work. Since AI-exposed jobs are often desk-based and suitable for remote work, earlier research may have conflated the effects of the two, the authors suggest.

They describe the study as “a useful first test” and say it does not rule out larger effects in the future. TechRadar reports that the authors also concluded there has been little direct evidence that AI will replace jobs.