Technology, employment and skills

This article investigates the relationships between technological change and employment considering the dynamics of four major professional groups - Managers, Clerks, Craft and Manual workers – defined on the basis of ISCO classes. The aim is to move beyond skill-biased and task-based views of the impact of technical change on skills and to identify the structural determinants of employment changes. A model is developed explaining changes in jobs as a result of changes in demand – total, domestic and foreign –, wages, the importance of innovation in products and processes and the role of the international fragmentation of production. The empirical analysis is carried out on manufacturing and service industries of major European countries over the 2000–2014 period. Results show that moving from aggregate employment to the dynamics of professional groups major diversities emerge; managers – for instance – are the main beneficiaries from product innovations, while clerks, craft and manual workers are negatively affected by the introduction of new processes. Separate estimations are also carried out for high and low tech industries and for Northern and Southern European countries, identifying a variety of ways in which patterns of innovation and structural change affect jobs in specific professional groups.