IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rif/briefs/34.html

Computerization Threatens One-Third of Finnish and Norwegian Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Pajarinen, Mika
  • Rouvinen, Petri
  • Ekeland, Anders

Abstract

We find that one-third of both Finnish and Norwegian employment will be highly susceptible to computerization in the next decade or two. Low-wage and low-skill occupations appear to be more threatened. Service and public sector jobs are relatively more sheltered than those in manufacturing and the private sector. Nevertheless, computerization will, to some extent, affect all occupations. There can be considerable difficulties for economies to adjust in the shorter run simply because there may be an overwhelming amount of job destruction and an insufficient amount of job creation. The digital transformation of society itself, however, creates a significant number of new needs, and a good way to respond to these needs is to place major emphasis on giving the workforce appropriate and adaptable competences.

Suggested Citation

  • Pajarinen, Mika & Rouvinen, Petri & Ekeland, Anders, 2015. "Computerization Threatens One-Third of Finnish and Norwegian Employment," ETLA Brief 34, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
  • Handle: RePEc:rif:briefs:34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Muistio-Brief-34.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    2. Kenji Kushida & Jonathan Murray & John Zysman, 2015. "Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 5-19, March.
    3. David H. Autor & David Dorn, 2013. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1553-1597, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Eder & Wolfgang Koller & Bernhard Mahlberg, 2022. "Economy 4.0: employment effects by occupation, industry, and gender," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1063-1088, November.
    2. Peter Haiss & Bernhard Mahlberg & Daniel Michlits, 2021. "Industry 4.0–the future of Austrian jobs," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 5-36, February.
    3. Filippi, Emilia & Bannò, Mariasole & Trento, Sandro, 2023. "Automation technologies and their impact on employment: A review, synthesis and future research agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    4. Alina Sorgner, 2017. "The Automation of Jobs: A Threat for Employment or a Source of New Entrepreneurial Opportunities?," Foresight and STI Governance, National Research University Higher School of Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 37-48.
    5. Kinga Hat & Gernot Stoeglehner, 2020. "Spatial Dimension of the Employment Market Exposition to Digitalisation—The Case of Austria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-29, March.
    6. Tuhkuri, Joonas, 2016. "Globalization Threatens One Quarter of Finnish Employment," ETLA Brief 46, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    7. Leibrecht, Markus & Scharler, Johann & Zhoufu, Yan, 2023. "Automation and unemployment: Does collective bargaining moderate their association?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 264-276.
    8. Martin Labaj & Materj Vitalos, 2019. "Automation and labor demand in European countries: A task-based approach to wage bill decomposition," Department of Economic Policy Working Paper Series 021, Department of Economic Policy, Faculty of National Economy, University of Economics in Bratislava.
    9. Sorgner, Alina, 2017. "Jobs at Risk!? Effects of Automation of Jobs on Occupational Mobility," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168088, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Miklós Illéssy & Ákos Huszár & Csaba Makó, 2021. "Technological Development and the Labour Market: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Automation in Hungary in the International Comparison?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, August.
    11. Yang, Siying & Liu, Fengshuo & Lu, Jingjing & He, Xiaogang, 2022. "Does occupational injury promote industrial robot applications?," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Michael Coelli & Jeff Borland, 2019. "Behind the headline number: Why not to rely on Frey and Osborne’s predictions of potential job loss from automation," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2019n10, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Ali-Yrkkö, Jyrki & Heikkilä, Jussi & Lööf, Hans & Martinsuo, Miia & Mohammadi, Ali & Olhager, Jan & Pajarinen, Mika & Rouvinen, Petri & Tuhkuri, Joonas, . "International Sourcing in Finland and Sweden," ETLA B, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, number 275.
    14. Lee, King Fuei, 2016. "Automation, Computerisation and Future Employment in Singapore," MPRA Paper 79961, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Filippi, Emilia & Bannò, Mariasole & Trento, Sandro, 2023. "Automation technologies and the risk of substitution of women: Can gender equality in the institutional context reduce the risk?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    16. Thordur Vikingur Fridgeirsson & Helgi Thor Ingason & Haukur Ingi Jonasson & Hildur Jonsdottir, 2021. "An Authoritative Study on the Near Future Effect of Artificial Intelligence on Project Management Knowledge Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tommaso AGASISTI & Geraint JOHNES & Marco PACCAGNELLA, 2021. "Tasks, occupations and wages in OECD countries," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(1), pages 85-112, March.
    2. Nicolaj S{o}ndergaard Muhlbach, 2021. "occ2vec: A principal approach to representing occupations using natural language processing," Papers 2111.02528, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    3. Shi, Zheng, 2023. "The impact of regional ICT development on job quality of the employee in China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(6).
    4. Nikulin, Dagmara & Wolszczak-Derlacz, Joanna, . "Warunki pracy w ramach globalnych łańcuchów wartości i rutynizacji na przykładzie pracowników z Polski," Gospodarka Narodowa-The Polish Journal of Economics, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie / SGH Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2023(3).
    5. Arendt, Lukasz & Gałecka-Burdziak, Ewa & Núñez, Fernando & Pater, Robert & Usabiaga, Carlos, 2023. "Skills requirements across task-content groups in Poland: What online job offers tell us," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    6. David Hémous & Morten Olsen, 2022. "The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 179-223, January.
    7. Shigeru Fujita & Madison Perry, 2024. "Nonworking Parents or Hungry Children," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 9(4), pages 2-9, December.
    8. Holmes, Craig & Mayhew, Ken, 2015. "Have UK Earnings Distributions Polarised?," INET Oxford Working Papers 2015-02, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    9. Mario Reinhold & Stephan Thomsen, 2017. "The changing situation of labor market entrants in Germany [Die veränderliche Situation für Berufseinsteiger in Deutschland]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 50(1), pages 161-174, August.
    10. David, Benjamin, 2017. "Computer technology and probable job destructions in Japan: An evaluation," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 77-87.
    11. Ross, Andrew G. & McGregor, Peter G. & Swales, J Kim, 2024. "Labour market dynamics in the era of technological advancements: The system-wide impacts of labour augmenting technological change," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    12. Hilal Atasoy & Rajiv D. Banker & Paul A. Pavlou, 2016. "On the Longitudinal Effects of IT Use on Firm-Level Employment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 6-26, March.
    13. Moh Hosseinioun & Frank Neffke & Letian Zhang & Hyejin Youn, 2025. "Skill dependencies uncover nested human capital," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(4), pages 673-687, April.
    14. Francesco Vona & Giovanni Marin & Davide Consoli, 2019. "Measures, drivers and effects of green employment: evidence from US local labor markets, 2006–2014," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(5), pages 1021-1048.
    15. Daniele Angelini, 2023. "Aging Population and Technology Adoption," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2023-01, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    16. Caitlin Allen Whitehead & Haroon Bhorat & Robert Hill & Tim Köhler & François Steenkamp, 2021. "The Potential Employment Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies: The Case of the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector," Working Papers 202106, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    17. Roberto Antonietti & Luca Cattani & Francesca Gambarotto & Giulio Pedrini, 2021. "Education, routine, and complexity-biased Knowledge Enabling Technologies: Evidence from Emilia-Romagna, Italy," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2021-07, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised May 2021.
    18. Kudoh, Noritaka & Miyamoto, Hiroaki, 2025. "Robots, AI, and unemployment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    19. Luca Bittarello & Francis Kramarz & Alexis Maitre, 2024. "The Task Content of Occupations," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 75(1), pages 31-53.
    20. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2lpvf5mlr48dkah5qda4hh4e9g is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Laurence Ales & Kurnaz Musab & Sleet Christopher, "undated". "Task, Talent, and Taxes," GSIA Working Papers 2014-E16, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rif:briefs:34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kaija Hyvönen-Rajecki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/etlaafi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.