Hiring Under Technological Change: AI Disclosure and Applicant Self-Selection
Dr. Soumitra Shukla
Economist
The Burning Glass Institute
Organizations are integrating artificial intelligence across the global economy, yet how prospective workers perceive these transitions remains unknown. In a randomized field experiment evaluating 35 live job vacancies and covering 3,865 applications across an industrial multinational, explicit disclosure of firm-wide AI adoption reduced total application volume by roughly one-third. This deterrence is highly uneven: while direct production roles are unaffected, coordination-intensive roles experience sharp declines, disproportionately repelling candidates without observable technical skills. Contrary to prevailing economic assumptions, this sorting is unpredicted by standard occupational AI-exposure indices. A companion experiment with 5,192 respondents reveals that workers interpret AI cues as signals of subjective role ambiguity and displacement risk. Coupling AI disclosure with explicit commitments to employer-provided AI training substantially weakens deterrence, mitigating perceived role ambiguity and displacement concerns.
