The sources

Chapter 24. The Missing Rung

13 sources behind this chapter. Each one carries a note on what it is doing in the argument.

The chapter itself, for readers of the book

  1. Canaries, Interest Rates, and Timing: More on the Recent Drivers of Employment Changes for Young Workers

    Brynjolfsson, Erik, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 9 February 2026

    The authors’ follow-up tests whether interest rates and timing explain the entry-level decline. It adds caution around the earliest years while finding that interest rates do not explain the disproportionate fall in AI-exposed occupations.

    Open this source Read the original

    Brynjolfsson, Erik, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen. 'Canaries, Interest Rates, and Timing: More on the Recent Drivers of Employment Changes for Young Workers.' Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 9 February 2026.

  2. How AI Broke the Entry-Level Job

    Weisberg, Nate Washington Monthly, 29 May 2026

    The Washington Monthly article is the direct source for Andrew Hanson’s quoted line that entry-level roles are becoming more like mid-level roles.

    Open this source Read the original

    Weisberg, Nate. 'How AI Broke the Entry-Level Job.' Washington Monthly, 29 May 2026.

  4. Entry-Level Hiring in the AI Era: What Employers Are Thinking (and Doing)

    Hanson, Andrew, and Molly Cook Escobar Strada Education Foundation, 19 May 2026

    Strada Institute for the Future of Work’s survey of nearly 1,500 executives and senior hiring leaders is the source for the chapter’s account of changing entry-level hiring and the expansion of analytical and judgement-based work expected from junior hires.

    Open this source Read the original

    Hanson, Andrew, and Molly Cook Escobar. ‘Entry-Level Hiring in the AI Era: What Employers Are Thinking (and Doing).’ Strada Education Foundation, 19 May 2026.

  5. Automation, AI, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Knowledge

    Ide, Enrique CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20940, 16 December 2025; revised 8 June 2026

    The research foundation for the missing-rung argument: when automation removes junior tasks, it may also interrupt the everyday transfer of tacit knowledge from experienced workers to beginners.

    Open this source Read the original

    Ide, Enrique. ‘Automation, AI, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Knowledge.’ CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20940, 2025; revised 8 June 2026.

  6. Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence

    Brynjolfsson, Erik, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 13 November 2025

    Early large-scale evidence that employment declines were concentrated among younger workers in occupations where AI was more likely to automate than augment their tasks.

    Open this source Read the original

    Brynjolfsson, Erik, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen. 'Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence.' Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 13 November 2025.

  7. Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence

    Massenkoff, Maxim, and Peter McCrory Anthropic, 5 March 2026

    Anthropic’s early labour-market study is used in Chapters 2 and 6 to distinguish exposure from realised displacement, and in Chapter 24 for the tentative evidence that hiring of workers aged twenty-two to twenty-five has slowed in highly exposed occupations.

    Open this source Read the original

    Massenkoff, Maxim, and Peter McCrory. ‘Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence.’ Anthropic, 5 March 2026.

  8. 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer

    PwC 15 June 2026

    Chapter 4 uses the report’s analysis of more than one billion job adverts to distinguish professionalised from democratised roles. Chapter 24 uses the 2.4 million US entry-level subset, including the seven-times increase in demands for higher-level skills.

    Open this source Read the original

    PwC. 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer. 15 June 2026.

All the sources, chapter by chapter