Research & writing
My work turns large-scale data into economic insight through applied research, measurement, and public writing. I study technological change, firms, and labor markets, combining experiments and proprietary data with careful interpretation of what the evidence can—and cannot—tell us.
Economic insights & public writing
Selected articles from my work at Revelio Labs, where I authored 11 pieces for the team’s weekly research newsletter.
Why switching jobs is no longer paying off
Zanele Munyikwa · Revelio Labs · 2026
Large pay gains from changing employers have become less common: the share of white-collar job moves delivering raises of at least 10% fell from roughly 54% in 2022 to 41% in 2025.
Salaries in These Cities Make Up for the High Cost of Living
Lisa K. Simon and Zanele Munyikwa · Revelio Labs · 2024
Among employees at Russell 1000 companies, some expensive metros rank highest for average pay relative to local living wages for two working adults with two children. Retail sales pay at these companies generally barely reaches the living-wage threshold.
The Tasks You Won’t See in Job Postings Anymore
Zanele Munyikwa · Revelio Labs · 2025
Shifts in the occupations employers recruit for account for roughly 84% of the decline in AI-exposed tasks in job ads; changes in advertised tasks within occupations account for 16%. These posting changes do not establish automation or job losses.
American Companies Are Offshoring High-Paying, Remote-Friendly Jobs
Zanele Munyikwa, Lisa K. Simon, Aaron Sojourner, and Elton Mykerezi · Revelio Labs · 2025
At US-headquartered multinationals, overseas employment grew faster than domestic employment in remote-suitable roles from 2019 to 2024. Larger offshore pay savings within company-role pairs were associated with a wider overseas growth advantage.
Economic measurement
At Revelio Labs, I developed hiring and promotion measures and the analytical backend for automated reports comparing labor supply, demand, and pay across locations, working with engineering on integration and delivery.
Current research
Automation’s Early Footprint: Where AI Agents Are (and Aren’t) Being Built
Cohere Labs · Technical report, blog post, and dataset · 2026
Zanele Munyikwa, Campbell Lund, Marzieh Fadaee, Aidan Peppin, and Thomas Euyang.
We map publicly available tools for AI agents to occupational tasks to study where developers are building automation capabilities. The dataset provides a view of tool supply; it does not establish whether those tools are adopted or how they affect employment.
Read the full paper · Read the blog post · Watch the discussion →
AI Exposure Scores: what they measure, what they miss, and what comes next
Cohere Labs · Working paper and blog post · 2026
Campbell Lund, Thomas Euyang, Zanele Munyikwa, and Marzieh Fadaee.
We examine the limitations of static AI exposure scores and the gap between available research and policy needs. The paper considers approaches to measurement that better reflect changing technologies, work, and institutions.
Explore talks, recordings, and press coverage →
More industry writing
What’s Culture Worth? Stock Performance of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2009 to 2019
Andrew Chamberlain and Zanele Munyikwa · Glassdoor Research
Did Work from Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?
Ben Waber and Zanele Munyikwa · Harvard Business Review
The Workforce Strategy Behind Nvidia’s Meteoric Rise to Dominance
Revelio Labs
2024 Workforce Insights Wrapped
Revelio Labs
Too Old To Lead? CEO Age Is on the Rise
Revelio Labs
Publications & working papers
Algorithmic Writing Assistance on Jobseekers’ Resumes Increases Hires
Emma Wiles, Zanele Munyikwa, and John J. Horton. Management Science, 71(12), 10144–10164 · 2025.
A field experiment with nearly half a million jobseekers examines the causal effect of nongenerative algorithmic writing assistance on hiring outcomes.
Journal article · NBER working paper
Proactively Developing and Assisting the Workforce in the Age of AI
Yong Suk Lee and coauthors, including Zanele Munyikwa. Americans for Responsible Innovation and the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame · 2025.
A collaborative policy report on preparing the workforce for AI. My contribution includes the section on data, research, and measurement.
On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
Rishi Bommasani and coauthors, including Zanele Munyikwa · 2021.
A collaborative report on foundation models and their societal implications, including economics.
Generative AI and Creative Work: The Case of Copywriting
Zanele Munyikwa and Erik Brynjolfsson · Working paper, 2023.
Research on generative AI and professional creative work, examining productivity and the quality of work produced.