published online in: Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 07 May 2021
We use data from a new international dataset - the European Skills and Jobs Survey - to create a unique measure of skills-displacing technological change (SDT), defined as technological change that may render workers' skills obsolete. We find that 16 percent of adult workers in the EU are impacted by SDT, with significant variance across countries, ranging from a high of 28 percent in Estonia, to below seven percent in Bulgaria. Despite claims that technological change contributes to the deskilling of jobs, we present evidence that SDT is associated with dynamic upskilling of workers.
The paper also presents the first direct micro-evidence of the reinstatement effect of automating technology, namely a positive contribution of automation to the task content and skills complexity of the jobs of incumbent workers. Despite the recent focus on the polarising impact of automation and associated reskilling needs of lower-skilled individuals, our evidence also draws attention to the fact that SDT predominantly affects higher-skilled workers, reinforcing inequalities in upskilling opportunities within workplaces. Workers affected by SDT also experience greater job insecurity.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.