A study by the Paris School of Economics has found that job postings in France are requiring fewer office-related computer skills, even as the number of available positions and salaries remain largely unchanged. Researchers Marie-Renée Andreescu and Éric Maurin analyzed more than 600,000 new job postings from the France Travail database, comparing them with social security records to track actual hires. Their analysis covered the period from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2025. The study categorized approximately 500 different jobs using the ROME nomenclature, a French system for classifying occupations, into three groups. The first group includes eight computing-related jobs, such as software developers and information system administrators, known as "IT-specialists." The second group consists of 125 office-related jobs, such as accountants and secretaries, which may require computer skills but not always—these are called "IT-exposed." The remaining 133 jobs, such as nursing assistants and masons, do not require computer skills and serve as a control group. From the end of 2023, job postings that required computer skills began to decline significantly. By the beginning of 2025, these postings were about 40 percent fewer compared to the start of 2023, when adjusted for the control group. The overall share of job postings requiring at least one computer skill dropped nearly 5 percentage points. This decline was mainly due to a reduced demand for mastery of office software, which alone accounted for about 4 percentage points of the decline. The researchers linked this trend to the introduction of conversational assistants in office software, which have made advanced tasks like creating complex tables and charts easier without requiring deep expertise in programs like Excel. However, salaries for office jobs have remained stable, and hiring has decreased. The drop in demand for skills does not seem to be due to cost, as salaries for both office jobs and computer specialists have not changed significantly. The overall number of job postings for these roles decreased by more than 10 percent, although the decline in computer skill requirements was more significant. Companies are still hiring assistants and accountants, but the technical entry requirements have lowered. The study also found that actual hiring for these positions decreased by about 8 percent compared to the control group, with the decline mainly affecting roles that required computer skills. The shift in job requirements began in the fourth quarter of 2023, coinciding with the release of professional versions of AI tools. This includes Code Interpreter by OpenAI and Microsoft Copilot, integrated into Windows 11. Before this period, from the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 to the end of 2023, no major changes were detected in job postings or required skills. Among specialized computing roles, the demand for specific skills has changed significantly. The number of postings for computing jobs has dropped by about 30 percent compared to the control group between the end of 2022 and the start of 2025. Programming skills have decreased, while AI skills are increasing, though they remain below 1 percent of postings. These AI skills are mostly requested from software developers, who account for about 69 percent of the increase, while functional information system consultants make up 14 percent. While AI skills are becoming more common in computing roles, their spread in other parts of the economy is less noticeable. An annual survey found that 86 percent of people in development jobs use at least one code generation tool. The number of candidates for computing jobs has not decreased; it has even increased slightly. The "shears" effect, where a drop in job requirements leads to a surge in applications, is evident: by early 2025, the number of applications per job offered was about 50 percent higher for computing jobs and 10 percent higher for office jobs compared to before the rise of generative AI. Industry leaders have offered varied explanations for the decline in computing job recruitment. Véronique Torner, president of Numeum, attributed the drop mainly to the economic climate and lack of business, not to technological changes. Insee, a French statistical agency, noted that the decline seems abrupt and largely coincides with the arrival of new AI technology. Its economic report estimates a 3 percent decline in employee numbers in computing and information services between the end of 2023 and the end of 2025, with the decline concentrated among junior roles, while experienced professionals continue to be hired.