Firms' GitHub Copilot adoption and labor market outcomes for software engineers

Abstract Using LinkedIn and GitHub data, this paper examines how firms' adoption of GitHub Copilot (GHC), a generative AI coding assistant, relates to software engineer (SWE) skills and labor outcomes. GHC adoption is associated with around a 3%–5% higher monthly probability of hiring SWEs, driven by entry‐level hires. New hires exhibit around 5% more non‐programming skills, with no decrease in coding skills. These findings are consistent with, for SWEs, GAI's productivity impacts and creation of new tasks outweighing potential displacement effects from automation of some SWE tasks.