This paper examines how demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related skills is associated with firms’ demand for worker personality traits. Using text analysis of 11.7 million UK online job postings from 2017 to 2022, drawn from a nearuniverse dataset of online vacancies, we construct measures of Big Five personality traits and AI-related skill requirements from job descriptions. At the vacancy level, positions requiring AI-related skills are significantly more likely to demand openness to experience and less likely to demand the remaining four traits, after controlling for firm, occupation, location, and time fixed effects. This pattern is distinct from the profile of postings requiring general computer skills, suggesting that the association with openness is specific to AI knowledge rather than broader digital requirements. At the firm level, staggered difference-in-differences estimates show that when firms expand AI-related hiring, their demand for openness rises across all postings, including non-AI vacancies within occupation groups. The results are consistent with firms that seek to integrate AI knowledge valuing creative workers who can adapt to new tools and approaches, and extending this preference beyond the roles that directly involve AI.
The paper is available in PDF format
Matias Golman and Maria Garcia-Vega
View all GEP discussion papers
Sir Clive Granger Building海角黑料University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD