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Digitization-Based Automation and Occupational Dynamics

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Abstract

We examine the relationship between occupational automation probabilities and employment dynamics over nearly two decades. We show that employment and wage shares of occupations with a higher automation risk have declined in Sweden over the period 1996-2013. This has occurred both in the aggregate private business sector but also within firms, where the wage share changes have been larger than the employment share changes. Combining the automation risk in workers’ occupations with individual worker characteristics, we find substantial heterogeneity. This includes that education dampens the automation risk of workers, as the average automation probability of low-skilled workers is almost twice as high as of university graduates. Employment shares in high-risk occupations have moreover declined across all wage levels, and most so in high-wage occupations.

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  • Gardberg, Malin & Heyman, Fredrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2019. "Digitization-Based Automation and Occupational Dynamics," Working Paper Series 1299, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1299
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    Cited by:

    1. Nii-Aponsah, Hubert, 2022. "Automation exposure and implications in advanced and developing countries across gender, age, and skills," MERIT Working Papers 2022-021, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Ryszard Marszowski & Sebastian Iwaszenko, 2021. "Mining in Poland in Light of Energy Transition: Case Study of Changes Based on the Knowledge Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Ramos, Minerva E. & Garza-Rodríguez, Jorge & Gibaja-Romero, Damian E., 2022. "Automation of employment in the presence of industry 4.0: The case of Mexico," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Florent Bordot & André Lorentz, 2021. "Automation and labor market polarization in an evolutionary model with heterogeneous workers," Working Papers of BETA 2021-39, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    5. Andersson, Fredrik W. & Jordahl, Henrik & Kärnä, Anders, 2021. "Ballooning Bureaucracy: Tracking the Growth of High-Skilled Administration within Swedish Higher Education," Working Paper Series 1399, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    6. Casas, Pablo & Román, Concepción, 2023. "Early retired or automatized? Evidence from the survey of health, ageing and retirement in Europe," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    7. Mr. Andrew Berg & Lahcen Bounader & Nikolay Gueorguiev & Hiroaki Miyamoto & Mr. Kenji Moriyama & Ryota Nakatani & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2021. "For the Benefit of All: Fiscal Policies and Equity-Efficiency Trade-offs in the Age of Automation," IMF Working Papers 2021/187, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Hensvik, Lena & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "The skill-specific impact of past and projected occupational decline," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Yang Shen & Xiuwu Zhang, 2024. "The impact of artificial intelligence on employment: the role of virtual agglomeration," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Fabian Busch & Robert Fenge & Carsten Ochsen, 2021. "Do Firms Hire More Older Workers? Evidence from Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 9219, CESifo.
    11. Heyman, Fredrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2021. "Automation, Work and Productivity: The Role of Firm Heterogeneity," Working Paper Series 1382, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 09 Mar 2023.
    12. Kerstin Hotte & Melline Somers & Angelos Theodorakopoulos, 2022. "Technology and jobs: A systematic literature review," Papers 2204.01296, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Automation; Digitization; Employment shares; Wage shares;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • 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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