The rise of remote work explains more of the recent increase in unemployment among young college graduates than the proliferation of artificial intelligence, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study.

Some 64% of the rise in jobless rates among college-educated workers under the age of 29 vs. prepandemic levels can be attributed to work-from-home trends, researchers including New York Fed economist Natalia Emanuel said Monday in a blog post published on the New York Fed’s website.

Emanuel and her co-authors compared unemployment rates by age in “remotable jobs” such as software engineering, where such gaps are most pronounced, to those in “non-remotable jobs” like mechanical engineering, where gaps have returned to pre-pandemic levels. They suggested companies have become more reluctant to hire younger workers in roles that are done remotely because work-from-home arrangements create barriers to training and development.

“Generative AI and other factors may play a more primary role in determining the employment patterns of younger workers going forward,” they wrote. “Nonetheless, the evidence to date suggests that the rise of remote work has meaningfully contributed to the recent challenges facing young college graduates.”

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