IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wboper/41998.html

World Bank East Asia and the Pacific Economic Update, October 2024: Jobs and Technology

Author

Listed:
  • World Bank

Abstract

East Asia and the Pacific, seen in the context of the world economy, stands out as a paragon of development. Despite the recent ravages of the pandemic and the persistent tensions of geopolitics, the region is growing at stably high rates and the benefits are widely shared. But compared to its own past and potential, the region’s economic performance is less impressive. Growth is still below pre-pandemic rates, except in Indonesia, and output has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels in several countries, especially in the Pacific. This Economic Update highlights three key developments: shifting regional growth dynamics as China’s growth slows, changing trade patterns due to global tensions, and the impact of technologies such as robots, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms on jobs. The report calls for productivity-enhancing structural reforms to strengthen domestic growth drivers through; deeper international trade agreements to foster more open and stable trade regimes; deeper technical, digital, and soft skills while addressing impediments to labor mobility, factor price distortions and expanding social protection for workers in the digital informal economy to boost productivity and employment.

Suggested Citation

  • World Bank, 2024. "World Bank East Asia and the Pacific Economic Update, October 2024: Jobs and Technology," World Bank Publications - Reports 41998, The World Bank Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wboper:41998
    Note: ISBN 978-1-4648-2175-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstreams/b881d2ff-9912-4eb6-9698-8f151975abb6/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhang, Yi & Wang, Ting & Liu, Chun, 2024. "Beyond the modern productivity paradox: The effect of robotics technology on firm-level total factor productivity in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Tadesse, Getaw & Bahiigwa, Godfrey, 2015. "Mobile Phones and Farmers’ Marketing Decisions in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 296-307.
    3. Trevor Tombe & Xiaodong Zhu, 2019. "Trade, Migration, and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis of China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1843-1872, May.
    4. MARIANA Viollaz & Hernan Winkler, 2022. "Does the Internet Reduce Gender Gaps? The Case of Jordan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 436-453, March.
    5. Zhang, Liangliang & Tao, Yunqing & Nie, Cong, 2022. "Does broadband infrastructure boost firm productivity? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    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. Xiaoxia Wang & Lei Li & Gang Xu, 2025. "Robots and gender inequality: Evidence from Chinese firms," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 279-312, September.

    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. Zhang, Cheng & Jian, Yaode & Zhou, Zhongsheng & Zhou, Bo, 2024. "Can the digital economy close the gender wage gap? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    2. Bahia,Kalvin & Castells,Pau & Masaki,Takaaki & Cruz,Genaro & Rodriguez Castelan,Carlos & Sanfelice,Viviane, 2021. "Mobile Broadband Internet, Poverty and Labor Outcomes in Tanzania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9749, The World Bank.
    3. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    4. Anderson, Ronald W., 2020. "Who bears risk in China's non-financial enterprise debt?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118879, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Russell Cooper & Guan Gong & Guanliang Hu & Ping Yan, 2026. "Exporting Like China: Productivity, Market Demand, and Labor Frictions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 67(2), pages 729-758, May.
    6. Cucu, Florin, 2025. "Roads, internal migration and the spatial sorting of U.S. high-skill workers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. Liu, Chen & Ma, Xiao, 2018. "China's Export Surge and the New Margins of Trade," MPRA Paper 103970, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2020.
    8. Lorenzo Caliendo & Luca David Opromolla & Fernando Parro & Alessandro Sforza, 2021. "Goods and Factor Market Integration: A Quantitative Assessment of the EU Enlargement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(12), pages 3491-3545.
    9. Xiao Chen & Hanwei Huang & Jiandong Ju & Ruoyan Sun & Jialiang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous cross-region human mobility and pandemics," CEP Discussion Papers dp1860, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Yuanyuan Chen & Zichen Deng, 2019. "Liquidity Constraint Shock, Job Search and Post Match Quality—Evidence from Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 332-355, September.
    11. Yuwan Duan & Erik Dietzenbacher & Bart Los & Ruochen Dai, 2023. "Regional inequality in China during its rise as a giant exporter: A value chain analysis," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 148-172, January.
    12. Wen, Le & Ali, Abdelrahman & Zhou, Zhipeng, 2026. "Rising housing rents and migrants' marriage formation: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. B Nkabinde & L.M Lekhanya & N. Dorasamy, 2024. "Rural-Urban Migration Challenges in South Africa: Case of Kwazulu-Natal (SA)," Journal of Economic and Social Development, Clinical Journals Press, vol. 11(02), pages 01-17.
    14. Deng, Jiapin & Li, Xiaoxia & Liu, Yanchu, 2025. "Does broadband infrastructure promote households’ welfare in wealth management? Evidence from the construction of cell towers and the purchase of Yu’E Bao in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    15. Bahia, Kalvin & Castells, Pau & Cruz, Genaro & Masaki, Takaaki & Pedrós, Xavier & Pfutze, Tobias & Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos & Winkler, Hernán, 2024. "The welfare effects of mobile broadband internet: Evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    16. Carlos Garriga & Aaron Hedlund & Yang Tang & Ping Wang, 2023. "Rural-Urban Migration, Structural Transformation, and Housing Markets in China," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 413-440, April.
    17. Wang, Linlin & Liu, Chun & Liu, Ding & Zhang, Yi, 2025. "Beyond jobs and wages: The hidden cost of automation on corporate social security contributions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    18. Fang, Lan & Quan, Yurong & Mao, Hui & Chen, Shaojian, 2022. "The Information Communication Technology and Off-farm Employment of Rural Laborers: An Analysis Based on the Micro Data of China Family Panel Studies," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322088, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Qingen Gai & Naijia Guo & Bingjing Li & Qinghua Shi & Xiaodong Zhu, 2021. "Migration Costs, Sorting, and the Agricultural Productivity Gap," Working Papers tecipa-693, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    20. Galperin, Hernan & Arcidiacono, Malena, 2021. "Employment and the gender digital divide in Latin America: A decomposition analysis," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:wbk:wboper:41998. 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: Tal Ayalon The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Tal Ayalon to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.