A January 2026 IMF staff discussion note tracking the spread of new job skills, increasingly AI-related, across US local labor markets found that a one-percentage-point rise in the share of job postings demanding those skills is associated with a 2.3% average wage gain and a 1.3% employment gain in that local labor market

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a staff discussion note in January 2026, analyzing the spread of new job skills in US local labor markets. The note found that a one-percentage-point increase in the share of job postings demanding new skills is associated with an average wage gain of 2.3% and an employment gain of 1.3% in those markets. This analysis considered all new skills, not exclusively AI-related ones.