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Testing Positive for Automation: Labour-replacing Technology and Job Loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Angela Euston-Brown

    (Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

The risk of technological job displacement represents an important component of vulnerability to job loss that has been poorly explored in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Expanding on the routinisation hypothesis, this paper merges O*NET occupational descriptors to South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey data to investigate the role of automation risk on the likelihood of job loss between February and May 2020. Further, in a multivariate context, the interacted effects of education and automation risk on job loss probabilities are explored. The results provide preliminary evidence to suggest that high automation risk was associated with greater probabilities of job loss at the start of the pandemic in South Africa. Consequently, routine-intensive employment may have been lost to labour-replacing technology and may never be regained in future due to the accelerated adoption of automation during COVID-19. The findings highlight the importance of upskilling and retraining workers into less vulnerable occupations.

Suggested Citation

  • Angela Euston-Brown, 2022. "Testing Positive for Automation: Labour-replacing Technology and Job Loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa," Working Papers 202202, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:202202
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    File URL: https://commerce.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/commerce_uct_ac_za/1093/files/DPRU%2520WP202202.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2022
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Automation; employment; task content of occupations; fourth industrial revolution; COVID-19; South Africa; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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