How Economists are Using AI at Work: The New Employability Skills

Drawing on a mixed-method study, a pulse survey of professional economists and an in-depth focus group, this research examines how GenAI is being used by professional economists and its implications for employability. Three themes emerge: (A) GenAI is embedded at every level of cognitive work, from routine tasks (coding, debugging) to mid-level tasks (literature reviews, summarising) and high-level tasks (data analysis, idea generation). (B) The most essential employability skill is the meta-competence of learning to learn with GenAI, combining technical proficiency (prompting, coding), critical evaluation of outputs, and creative application across diverse contexts. (C) Ethical and responsible use of GenAI is emerging as a key soft skill, encompassing transparency, fairness, and data responsibility. Together, these insights highlight how universities can adapt curricula, redesign assessments, and support staff development to prepare students for GenAI-enhanced careers in economics.