---
id: "entity-displacement-or-complementarity-paper"
type: "entity"
entityType: "other"
canonicalName: "Displacement or Complementarity? The Labor Market Impact of Generative AI"
aliases: ["Displacement or Complementarity", "HBS Working Paper 25-039"]
source_timestamps: ["¶7"]
tags: ["working-paper", "research-publication"]
related: ["entity-suraj-srinivasan", "entity-wilbur-xinyuan-chen", "entity-saleh-zakerinia", "claim-post-chatgpt-demand-shift"]
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-edu-35-ai-changing-labor-market"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/research-how-ai-is-changing-the-labor-market"
sourceTitle: "Research: How AI Is Changing the Labor Market"
---
# Displacement or Complementarity? The Labor Market Impact of Generative AI

**Type:** Academic working paper (publication). **Canonical reference:** HBS Working Paper 25-039 (PDF).

A working paper co-authored by [[entity-suraj-srinivasan|Suraj Srinivasan]], [[entity-wilbur-xinyuan-chen|Wilbur Xinyuan Chen]], and [[entity-saleh-zakerinia|Saleh Zakerinia]]. The paper analyzes a large dataset of **U.S. job vacancies from 2019 through March 2025** to determine how generative AI is impacting labor demand, specifically distinguishing between **job displacement (automation)** — [[concept-ai-automation-displacement]] — and **job complementarity (augmentation)** — [[concept-ai-augmentation-complementarity]]. It is the primary source of every empirical claim in this vault, including [[claim-post-chatgpt-demand-shift]], and the home of the [[framework-task-categorization-scoring|task-based augmentation-scoring methodology]].

**Enrichment note:** The paper confirms *heterogeneous effects* — generative AI reduces labor demand and skill requirements in "structured cognitive-task jobs" and increases both demand and skill complexity in human-AI collaboration occupations. Corroborated by the World Bank ([[evidence-world-bank-labor-demand]]). The specific magnitudes cited by HBR (−13%, +20%, −7%) are **article-level synthesis** and do not appear verbatim in the public PDF.