Will Imports and Robots Push Older Workers into Nontraditional Jobs?

Recent research has called attention to workers in nontraditional jobs Ð defined here as jobs without retirement and health benefits, particularly those with volatility in hours or wages. At the same time, U.S. workers are facing growing competition from trade and automation. The question is: are trade and automation pushing more workers into nontraditional jobs? This issue may be a particular concern for older workers, who increasingly need longer careers with continued access to retirement plans and health coverage to secure an adequate retirement. To explore the relationship between trade, automation, and nontraditional work, this brief, based on a recent study, tests whether workers are more likely to be in nontraditional jobs, or to transition to such jobs, in states that have greater exposure to trade and automation. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section defines nontraditional work and presents trends in trade and automation. The second section describes the analytic approach. The third section reports the results, which show no evidence that a rise in import competition leads workers to end up in Ð or switch to Ð nontraditional jobs. However, some evidence suggests that automation does have an effect, particularly for older workers relative to mid-career workers. The final section concludes that as automation continues to increase, nontraditional jobs may grow more common, underscoring the need for alternative sources of retirement saving and health insurance coverage.