Book Chapter

In times of globalisation the deregulation of labour markets and restructuring of work have created challenges in European labour markets in general and in youth labour markets in particular. Increased international competition has led to more uncertainty about the future development of the labour market, making transitions from youth to adulthood more complex.

New technologies are expected to have a major impact on jobs in advanced countries, both in terms of quantity and the nature of jobs. While some expect a job-less future, others trust in societies and economies to transform and create new jobs. The paper explores the expected impact of technological change on jobs by providing a conceptual framework to analyse the nexus technological change- innovations- jobs. It discusses market, social and political forces in shaping this process. The paper shows that the impact of new technologies on jobs differs significantly across countries, and discusses social capabilities as a major determinant of these differences. The paper concludes that the dynamics of technological change, and the shift from job-destroying to job creating phases of innovations requires social choices, and those countries will create good jobs that are pro-actively shaping this process.

The 2016 election heightened an ongoing debate in the United States about how best to respond to two of the foremost economic challenges of the current era: stagnant wages and a dearth of promising career prospects for American workers without a bachelor’s degree. These challenges persist despite a dramatic increase in recent decades in years of schooling and sizable investments (by both the U.S. government and individual students and their families) in traditional forms of higher education. In this paper, I argue that a large-scale apprenticeship program could address these challenges, while also yielding substantial additional gains for employers and the U.S. economy. I first review the evidence on apprenticeship, which suggests that increasing the availability of apprenticeships would increase youth employment and wages, improve workers’ transitions from school to careers, upgrade those skills that employers most value, broaden access to rewarding careers, increase economic productivity, and contribute to positive returns for employers and workers. I then propose policies to stimulate a large-scale expansion of apprenticeship in the United States.

Systems of vocational education and training (VET) that include periods of work-based learning have many attractive qualities, seen from a political perspective. VET systems that build on the tradition of apprenticeship with alternating training provide a valuable alternative for young people who chose not to pursue an academic career.

The profitability of automation firms is increasingly grounded in high-level automation software solutions and their related performance and consultation services rather than the production and delivery of basic automation products (Ylén et al., 2010). In this type of business activity value is created in a close, innovation-oriented collaboration between suppliers and their clients during the entire life cycle of an automation solution.

This chapter discusses services offshoring, which refers to the migration of jobs across national borders, mostly from rich countries to poor ones, with imported products and activities flowing back to the United States. A measure of tradability is described, built from common notions of job characteristics related to offshorability. A selection of tradable occupations do indeed have characteristics of offshorability, including Internet-enabled, high-information content, no-face-to-face customer contact. The calculated index of offshorability offers strong potential for understanding jobs (tasks) at risk. The two measures of tradability and offshorability offer a combined potential to do the same. The chapter concludes with the expectation that, as technology and policy allow for more trade in these activities, the United States should gain world market share in these activities, not lose it.

Nominal wage growth in most advanced economies remains markedly lower than it was before the Great Recession of 2008–09. This chapter finds that the bulk of the wage slowdown can be explained by labor market slack, inflation expectations, and trend productivity growth. While involuntary part-time employment may have helped support labor force participation and facilitated stronger engagement with the workplace, it also appears to have weakened wage growth. This is the case even in economies where measured slack appears low.