CAGE Research Centre » Manage News & Annoucements

New research shows that remote work, not AI, is linked to declining early-career hiring

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:47:00 GMT

A major study which examined data on millions of new hires and job postings across four advanced economies suggests that concerns about entry level roles being replaced by AI may be unfounded - and calls for a redesign of hybrid work to better support early-career development.

Based on analysis of 650 million hiring records the research finds that a sharp decline in the share of new hires who are early-career workers is more closely linked to the rise of remote and hybrid working since the Covid-19 pandemic, than to the adoption of artificial intelligence.

The study, The Broken Ladder: AI, Remote Work, and Early-Career Hiring, by Peter John Lambert and Yannick Schindler analyses 243 million employer-employee matches and 407 million online job postings across the UK, US, Canada and Australia between 2017 and 2025. It finds that by 2025, the share of new hires going to early-career workers had fallen between 8 and 11 per cent below 2019 levels across all four countries.

Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 it has been suggested that generative AI is reducing demand for junior workers. However, the researchers argue that this conclusion may be premature.

Their analysis shows that occupations most exposed to AI are often the same occupations that experienced the largest shift towards remote and hybrid working. When both factors are examined together, exposure to remote-work remains a strong predictor of declines in the share of junior hiring, while the apparent effect of AI largely disappears.

Research author Peter John Lambert, economist at the University of Warwick, said:

“Our findings suggest that remote and hybrid working arrangements are currently a much better explanation for what we are seeing in the data. However, this shouldn’t be interpreted as an argument for widespread return-to-office mandates. Previous research has highlighted the demonstrable benefits of hybrid working to employee retention, flexibility and access to employment opportunities.”

Co-author Yannick Schindler, Senior Research Economist at the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford, continued:

“AI may well still matter for junior hiring, our evidence simply suggests it wasn't the main culprit behind the slowdown in early-career hiring after the pandemic. The encouraging message is that the challenge appears to be organisational rather than technological: if remote working is reducing opportunities for junior workers, employers can respond by redesigning hybrid work around training, mentoring and collaboration.

“That is a much more manageable problem than widespread AI-driven labour displacement. The priority now is to gather highly granular, high-quality data on AI adoption in the workplace, so we can properly disentangle the two great changes currently reshaping work: AI and remote working.”

Policy briefing: The Broken Ladder: Remote work, AI, and the decline in early-career hiring
Supporting research: Lambert, P. J. and Schindler, Y. (2026). The Broken Ladder: AI, Remote Work, and Early-Career Hiring by Peter John Lambert and Yannick Schindler. CAGE Working Paper No. 808/2026, University of Warwick

Financial Times: The winners of Brexit

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 07:34:37 GMT

News redirect

Unlocking UK-wide growth: new research evidence and policy tools

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:36:00 GMT

Over 60 economists, academics and policy makers took part in a workshop which looked at new research on the UK's internal market, regional inequalities and domestic frictions to trade, regional growth and productivity.

Delivered in partnership with the Institute of Fiscal Studies, representatives from government departments including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; Department for Transport; Competition and Markets Authority; Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; Department for Business and Trade; and the ONS, engaged with academics working across the topic on their latest research in the context of factors which affect UK wide growth.

The day opened with a presentation from Anna Stansbury from the MIT Sloan School of Management on her research into the UK’s regional economic inequality “Tackling the UK's Regional Economic Inequality: Binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention”. She suggested that the removal of autonomy from local authorities and the focus on centralisation/national delivery has led to the underperformance of cities outside London.

Housing demand across the UK and the barriers to building was the focus of Amrita Kulka’s (University of Warwick) presentation "Mapping excess housing demand using big search data". She presented the WhereToBuild mapping tool which draws on data from 20 billion housing searches to identify the gaps at regional level between where people want to live and supply.

A panel discussion chaired by Marta Santamaria (University of Warwick) on tools to achieve UK-wide growth gave participants the chance to find out more about the industrial strategy, transport policy and local governance.

Stephen Aldridge (Director, Analysis and Data for Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), Ian Mulheirn (Chief Analyst and Chief Economist for Department for Transport), Tony Venables (Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University / Honorary Professor at University of Manchester), James Waugh (Director, Competition and Markets Authority) took questions from the floor and discussed the challenges of regional inequalities and the potential disconnect between national decision making and regional implementation.

The potential of renewable energy for economic growth was the topic of Enrico Vanino’s (University of Sheffield) presentation “Local Economic Effects of Renewable Energy: Evidence from Offshore Wind Energy in the UK”. He discussed the way it can affect local employment and the interdependence between achieving net zero and levelling up.

Jacob Schneebacher (IFS) followed with early research findings on UK productivity and wages. His presentation "Growing in place: The shift from span to scale in UK multiestablishment firms" covered what they would look like if the cost of opening new establishments had not risen.

The final session covered the domestic market and transport policy. Yadira Gómez-Hernández (Brunel Centre, University of Bath) discussed the lack of available data on the wider economic effects of local transport infrastructure spending and the strategic case for local schemes in her presentation “Impact of Local Public Transport Schemes on Economic Growth”.

Marta Santamaria closed the event with her research “How integrated is the United Kingdom? Frictions in the domestic goods market” on the scale of domestic frictions to trade which vary by nation and industry.

BBC News In Depth: How the High Street became a window on our political instability

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:13:05 GMT

News redirect

FT: What if remove working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:53:00 GMT

News redirect

CAGE Working Papers April and May 2026

Fri, 22 May 2026 10:55:00 GMT

CAGE research papers draw on our global academic network of research associates and address topics aligned to our four core themes.

Contact cage.centre@warwick.ac.uk for more information on submitting research to our working paper series or to be added to our mailing list.

808 The Broken Ladder: AI, Remote Work, and Early-Career Hiring

Authors: Peter John Lambert & Yannick Schindler

Theme: Designing and Building Institutions

Summary: This paper investigates whether generative AI is responsible for the recent decline in early-career hiring. Using data on 243 million hires and 407 million job postings across four countries, the authors compare the effects of GenAI exposure and remote work exposure. While each appears associated with reduced junior hiring when examined separately, joint analysis shows that working-from-home exposure remains a strong predictor, whereas the estimated effect of GenAI largely disappears. The findings suggest remote work, rather than AI, is the primary driver of declining entry-level opportunities.

Read the working paper

807 The U.S. Civil War’s Impact on Women’s Work and Political Participation

Authors: Madison Arnsbarger, Andreas Ferrara, Paige Montrose

Theme: Global Economic History

Summary: This paper examines how labor market participation can facilitate the political mobilization of underrepresented groups, focusing on the wives and daughters of disabled Union Army veterans after the U.S. Civil War. Linking military and census records, it finds that women in affected households were more likely to enter the workforce. Areas with greater female labor force participation and higher concentrations of disabled veterans saw more Temperance Crusade activism, suggesting that economic participation helped enable collective political action among women.

Read the working paper

806 Intergenerational Transmission of Victimization

Authors: Sonia Bhalotra, N. Meltem Daysal, Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen, Thomas H. Jørgensen, Sébastien Montpetit

Theme: Gender, Health and Wellbeing

Summary: This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of violent crime victimization using four decades of Danish administrative data. It finds that children whose parents were victims are substantially more likely to experience violent victimization themselves, with stronger effects when the mother was victimized. Socioeconomic and family characteristics explain much, but not all, of this relationship. The association is weaker in higher-income families and disappears for daughters. The study also links parental victimization to reduced intergenerational income mobility among children.

Read the working paper

805 The Price of Protection: Tariff Incidence and Import Collapse under the Infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff

Authors: Kris James Mitchener, Mathieu Pedemonte

Theme: Responsive Public Policy

Summary: This paper examines the economic effects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act using newly digitized monthly import and tariff data. It finds that imports subject to tariff increases declined sharply, with a one-percentage-point tariff rise reducing imports by an average of 4 percent. The study shows that U.S. importers bore most of the tariff burden and attributes the high trade elasticity partly to fixed exchange rates. Model estimates suggest Smoot-Hawley caused 27 percent of the import decline and reduced welfare by about 0.2 percent of GDP.

Read the working paper

804 Women’s Education and Fertility in Italy at the Onset of the Demographic Transition

Authors: Carlo Ciccarelli, Gianni Marciante

Theme: Global Economic History

Summary: This paper examines the role of women’s education in Italy’s historical fertility transition between 1881 and 1921. Using original district-level panel data, it exploits variation in proximity to early female teacher-training colleges established under the 1859 Casati Law as an instrumental variable for women’s education. The findings show that increased female education reduced fertility rates, with effects operating through improved health knowledge and the greater economic independence represented by women entering the teaching profession.

Read the working paper

803 Holy Growth: Two Millennia of Regional Inequality in Italy Inferred from Church Construction

Authors: Carla Salvo, Jacob Weisdorf

Theme: Global Economic History

Summary: This paper investigates the historical origins of Italy’s North–South economic divide using newly assembled data on ecclesiastical building activity as a proxy for regional development. The study identifies two pre-modern periods of economic prosperity in the 10th–13th and 15th–16th centuries, both disrupted by major plague outbreaks. The evidence suggests the regional gap emerged around 900 CE, when Northern Italy gained a lasting advantage, which was subsequently reinforced following Italian unification.

Read the working paper

802 Information Shocks, Attitudes toward Immigrants, and Hate Crime

Authors: Jake Bradley, Facundo Albornoz, Silvia Sonderegger, Jesús Rodríguez, Devesh Rustagi

Theme: Designing and Building Institutions

Summary: This paper examines how political events revealing anti-immigrant sentiment influence hate crimes in democratic societies. Focusing on two UK events, it finds that hate crimes rose most sharply in pro-immigrant areas rather than anti-immigrant ones. The study argues that xenophobic minorities in these areas experienced stronger belief shocks, updating their perceptions of the social acceptability of hate. The findings highlight how national information shocks and heterogeneous prior beliefs can amplify xenophobic behavior and social tensions.

Read the working paper

801 The State-Contingent Debt Premium: Evidence from French Public Bonds

Authors: Kris James Mitchener Gonçalo Pina

Theme: Global Economic History

Summary: This paper estimates the issuance and long-run pricing of state-contingent debt using a quasi-twin bond comparison of two French government bonds issued in 1956. One bond featured coupons linked to industrial production, allowing identification of the state-contingent debt premium. The study finds a higher expected yield at issuance, with realized premia amplified by strong economic growth. Over time, market prices reduced spreads to zero, though temporary shocks briefly increased them, suggesting limited long-term costs of such instruments.

Read the working paper

800 Sticky Gravity

Authors: Mario Larch, Leandro Navarro, and Dennis Novy

Theme: Designing and Building Institutions

Summary: This paper develops a structural dynamic gravity model to explain the persistence of international trade flows. It shows that persistence arises from firms’ sluggish adjustment of destination-specific prices, providing a micro-founded rationale for including lagged trade flows in gravity equations. The authors propose a novel estimation approach accounting for this dynamic feature. Empirically, they demonstrate that ignoring persistence leads to understated effects of trade policy, with the estimated impact of regional trade agreements increasing by 30% or more.

Read the working paper

FT: A guide to 'greedflation'

Wed, 20 May 2026 08:17:13 GMT

News redirect

New podcast: economic lessons from history

Mon, 18 May 2026 09:07:00 GMT

The CAGE Research Centre has launched a new economics podcast on the making of the modern world which looks to the past to help inform the decisions we make now and in the future.

Produced in partnership with On Humans, our first series explores the reasons Western Europe became the richest corner of the early modern world - overtaking China and India to become the epicentre of the world economy.

With guests that include leading experts Kenneth Pomeranz, Joel Mokyr, Robert Allen, Debin Ma, Bishnupriya Gupta, and Stephen Broadberry each episode covers this from multiple angles - including insights into colonialism, the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels, knowledge-formation, and historical GDP estimates.

Along with supporting resources we discuss their theories around why the West got rich and gain insight into how what is known as the "Great Divergence" has an impact on world events today.

Listen to the series: CAGE Economic History Podcast

Most people misjudge the scale of workplace sexual harassment

Tue, 12 May 2026 14:37:52 GMT

Misconceptions around the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment and the damage it causes may shape support for stronger action, a new study finds.

With one in three of all women in the UK experiencing workplace sexual harassment, research by Sonia Bhalotra and Matthew Ridley find that it remains widespread despite years of public debate following the #MeToo movement and repeated promises from employers to tackle the issue.

They explored how the public thinks about sexual harassment at work, whether people know their legal rights, and how public attitudes change when they are given more information about the problem.

Through a large-scale survey involving thousands of UK residents, participants were asked what they believed about the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment, how serious its effects are, and whether current laws and reporting systems work.

The project also examined whether people support stronger policies such as whistleblower protections, non-disclosure agreement restrictions, and greater transparency over previous misconduct.

The researchers then tested whether people’s views changed after being shown evidence about harassment rates, economic harms and the difficulties victims face when seeking justice.

While workplace sexual harassment is often discussed as a moral or legal issue, the research also stresses its economic effects. It highlights that harassment damages productivity, pushes women out of jobs and industries, and distorts career choices.

Pointing towards women avoiding male-dominated professions because they perceive a higher risk of harassment, the evidence also links it to poorer mental health, lower job satisfaction, absenteeism and employees leaving their jobs altogether.

Beyond the impact on individuals, the findings suggest there may be broader economic costs when talented workers leave workplaces or industries because they feel unsafe.

"One of the biggest challenges is that many incidents are never formally reported. Our study not only measure experiences of harassment, it also measures the accuracy of public beliefs.

"Victims often fear retaliation, worry about career consequences, or believe nothing will happen if they complain.

"With previous studies suggesting that employers frequently fail to punish perpetrators even when incidents are reported - we argue that this creates a cycle in which harassment remains hidden while public understanding of the scale of the problem stays incomplete."

Central to the research is the concept that public perceptions can directly influence policy and shows that better information can change attitudes. The findings could help shape future debates over workplace protections, whistleblowing rules and employer accountability.

Read the full research paper: Perceptions of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Support for Policy Action

Ten inconvenient truths about the energy implications of the Iran crisis

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:57:00 GMT

Yes, the Iran crisis is a matter of global security. But it is also an event redistributing market shares in a declining hydrocarbon system.

This article written by Thiemo Fetzer, University of Warwick professor and CAGE project lead was originally published as a new Global Ideas Centre, Strategic Assessment Memo (SAM) in Berlin on The Globalist.

The Iran war is being narrowly framed as a matter of global security. Yet, it should be also seen as a market-share event in the context of a declining hydrocarbon system.

The hardest truth about the Iran war is not that “someone is winning.” It is that multiple actors are benefiting from different parts of the same crisis.

The conflict affects the redistribution of energy rents, trade frictions and industrial adjustment pressures across multiple world regions. It follows the logic of shaping trade escalation along production networks.

As a somewhat perplexing result, many actors can look simultaneously as being “at risk” and “strategically advantaged.”

The uncomfortable part of this observation that merits much bigger attention than has been given to it so far is this: the war economy is already selecting winners.

1. The United States is both vulnerable and advantaged in oil

US shale oil production is high-cost, operationally fragile and has been in secular decline since late 2023. The period of lower oil prices that significantly reduced Russia’s hydrocarbon income was also a pain point for the US shale oil industry.

This cyclical dependency on the oil price does not mean weakness in this cycle: US shale oil is a high-cost swing producer that benefits disproportionately when volatility rises and global benchmark prices increase.

The same fragility that hurt shale oil producers in low-price periods now gives them leverage in a risk-premium market that is of the US’s own geopolitical making.

2. The 2014-2016 oil price war defined this part of the current rivalry

The OPEC/Saudi price war against U.S. shale over a decade ago illustrated that US shale oil has become a key swing producer in global oil markets.

The current Iran shock replays part of that logic under geopolitical stress: low-cost Gulf producers that can expect to defend market share, while US producers effectively gain market share through their flexibility.

This is no longer a contest over pure volume but a contest over who is able to monetise instability fastest. The fact that this instability is the result of US political action makes it all the more ethically problematic.

3. Physical loss of MENA oil capacity is a strategic transfer to US bloc

When competing regional low-cost crude infrastructure is degraded or even shut in, the regional diversity of global supply falls and insurance premiums rise, which in turn induces buyers to pay for “secure” Atlantic-linked barrels.

The US thus gains market share not only in crude and LNG, but in pricing power over allied importers.

That same mechanism also helps slow the pivot away from USD commodity trade settlement by pushing (or keeping) buyers in dollarised channels.

China on the other hand may pivot to smaller producers and expand purchases from the likes of Canada, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, possibly using these channels to expand RMB settlement.

4. The oil price shock is opening a wedge between Russia and China

Russia benefits mechanically from higher hydrocarbon prices despite Ukraine’s ongoing effort to degrade Russian supply capacity.

China’s calculations on costs-and-benefits, in contrast, may be more uneven. Its access to discounted crude may be disrupted, yet it is exposed to economic growth drag in oil-sensitive partner markets.

So the current oil price shock is not a clean anti-China move, but it is a strategic irritant inside the China-Russia alignment, because Moscow’s near-term rent gain and Beijing’s medium-term demand risk are not symmetrical.

5. The current oil price shock is a disguised demand subsidy for Chinese renewable and energy transition exports

Higher transport costs in Asia accelerate replacement economics for EV and may further accelerate other Chinese green tech technology export that can reduce demand for hydrocarbon derivatives such as synthetic fertiliser.

Given that China is the low-cost scale supplier in many technologies, that means the Iran crisis can simultaneously “pressure” China geopolitically, while also commercially strengthening Chinese global industrial penetration.

Thus, an oil shock that may have been meant to constrain Beijing can also result in expanding Beijing’s downstream technology footprint and export market access.

6. Europe is hurt first, but may gain strategic time

The immediate effects on European economies are negative. They range from squeezed household demand and higher freight costs to pressure on industrial inputs and consumer prices.

But the second-round effects can turn out to be positive – and indeed protective – for Europe. What is in the offing is faster transport decarbonisation, higher Asia-Europe trade friction and a policy buffer from tariffs, minimum price regimes and CBAM.

In practice, that combination reduces the speed of direct Chinese import displacement in key sectors in Europe and thus buys adaptation time for EU industry.

7. Oil is structurally – the real conflict is over residual share

The structural point that matters more than the headline oil price spike is this: demand destruction in road transport is advancing and will be relentless, electrification is scaling and long-dated extraction bets are harder to justify.

In a declining oil market, low-cost producers like Saudi Arabia and parts of MENA hold the strategic longer-term advantage. High-cost producers can still win cycles, but low-cost producers stand to win market share long term.

8. US shale producers have a perverse incentive to prefer volatility – as does the US financial services industry

The two-stage production model, drill now/frack later, creates an option value. Even with weaker drilling and fracking activity over the last two years, US shale operators can monetise volatility bursts faster than conventional megaproject producers by tapping drilled but not fracked wells.

That is why geopolitical instability can be commercially attractive to high-cost swing producers: volatility, not stability, becomes part of the profit architecture.

9. China can absorb part of the shock and export the pressure outward

China’s strategic oil reserves, industrial depth and EV overcapacity give it room to regionalise adjustment into Asia-Pacific markets. That may improve its trade balance in the short run, but it also generates backlash.

After all, its regional partner economies that face import surges may demand safeguards, more localisation of production and other forms of protecting their economies. This may even lead these countries seeking closer security and military ties with the US.

So the same mechanism that helps China clear excess capacity may also accelerate coalition-building against Chinese dominance.

10. The MENA region is the major fault line where energy war, climate stress and corridor politics meet

The Belt-and-Road signature is visible in which country is most exposed: Iraq is macro-fragile under energy and logistics disruption, and in that sense like Egypt.

But, as a consequence of the post-2003 era of fundamental disruption, Iraq is also climate-vulnerable and structurally under-diversified.

Attacks on rail or corridor infrastructure around Iraq/Iran should be read as strategic signalling. If escalation pushes into Strait dynamics, the risk of US - China confrontation rises and hawkish factions in both competitor countries gain leverage.

Conclusion

The Iran shock is accelerating a reordering with a redistribution of hydrocarbon rents. The diffusion of EVs is being forced via through price pain at the gas station. Trade and currency blocs may also be hardening.

The global system is clearly fragmenting. The overriding policy question is thus no longer whether the system is fragmenting. It is who designs the next coordination layer – if anyone indeed can – before fragmentation hardens into permanent conflict.