Anders Humlum
Labour economist; NBER paper found AI shifts tasks, not employment levels.
Last refreshed: 28 March 2026
His data says AI changes jobs, not kills them: is the layoff panic overblown?
Latest on Anders Humlum
- Who is Anders Humlum?
- A labour economist at the University of Chicago who co-authored the NBER working paper finding that LLM adoption shifts tasks rather than destroying jobs.Source: NBER
- What did the Humlum Vestergaard paper find?
- LLM adoption is linked to occupational switching and task restructuring but without net changes in hours or earnings, based on large-scale administrative data.Source: NBER
- Does AI cause job losses according to research?
- The Humlum-Vestergaard NBER paper found AI changes tasks, not employment levels. Oxford Economics found fewer than 5% of firms report direct AI-driven reductions. Yale identified 'AI washing' in layoff claims.Source: NBER / Oxford Economics / Yale
Background
Humlum is a labour economist at the University of Chicago. His research with co-author Emilie Vestergaard used large-scale administrative data to track workers exposed to LLM tools, measuring actual employment outcomes rather than survey-based sentiment. The methodology distinguished his findings from headline layoff counts.
Anders Humlum co-authored the NBER working paper that reframed the 2026 AI/jobs debate, finding that LLM adoption is linked to occupational switching and task restructuring but without net changes in hours or earnings. The paper shifted the argument from "AI destroys jobs" to "AI changes what jobs involve," providing the empirical anchor for a debate otherwise dominated by corporate announcements.
The paper sits at the centre of a three-way empirical consensus with Oxford Economics (fewer than 5% of firms report AI-driven reductions) and Yale Budget Lab ("AI washing" in corporate restructuring). Together they established that the gap between AI layoff rhetoric and measured displacement is wide.