White Paper

The authors of this working paper study the impact of industrial robots on employment and wages in six European Union countries, which make up 85.5 percent of the EU industrial robots market. In theory, robots can directly displace workers from performing specific tasks (displacement effect). But they can also expand labour demand through the efficiencies they bring to industrial production (productivity effect). The research adopts the local labour market equilibrium approach developed by Acemoglu and Restrepo (2017) to assess which of the two labour market effects dominates. The authors find that one additional robot per thousand workers reduces the employment rate by 0.16-0.20 percentage points. Thus, a significant displacement effect dominates. The displacement effect is particularly evident for workers of middle education and for young cohorts, while men are more affected than women. Estimates, however, do not point to robust and significant results on the impact of robots on wage growth, even after accounting for possible offsetting effects across different populations and sectoral groups.

Digital platforms are increasingly helping connect job seekers—from informal workers to highly skilled professionals—to suitable job opportunities. These platforms, which can aggregate vast amounts of data, accomplish three things.

This paper examines multidimensional aspects of job quality in Canada. Six broad dimensions of job quality were assessed: income and benefits, career prospects, work intensity, working-time quality, skills and discretion, and social environment. Results from both descriptive and latent class analysis reveal a great deal of variation in job quality across sectors and socio-demographic groups. Results show that some of the largest labour market segments, such as hospitality and personal services, are associated with many negative job features. Moreover, workers in atypical contracts or part-time employment also cumulate many disadvantages in the workplace other than being low-paid.

We study the extent to which manufacturing decline and local housing booms contributed to changes in labor market outcomes during the 2000s, focusing primarily on the distributional consequences across geographical areas and demographic groups. Using a local labor markets design, we estimate that manufacturing decline significantly reduced employment between 2000 and 2006, while local housing booms increased employment by roughly the same magnitude. The effects of manufacturing decline persist through 2012, but we find no persistent employment effects of local housing booms, likely because housing booms were associated with subsequent busts of similar magnitude. These results suggest that housing booms “masked” negative employment growth that would have otherwise occurred earlier in the absence of the booms. This “masking” occurred both within and between cities and demographic groups. For example, manufacturing decline disproportionately affected older men without a college education, while the housing boom disproportionately affected younger men and women, as well as immigrants. Applying our local labor market estimates to the national labor market, we find that roughly 40 percent of the reduction in employment during the 2000s can be attributed to manufacturing decline and that these negative effects would have appeared in aggregate employment statistics earlier had it not been for the large, temporary increases in housing demand.

An amendment to legislation in 2009 enabled New Zealand firms with fewer than 20 employees to hire new workers on trial periods. The scheme was subsequently extended to employers of all sizes. The policy was intended to encourage firms to take on more employees, and particularly more disadvantaged job seekers, by reducing the risk associated with hiring an unknown worker. We use unit record linked employer-employee data and the staggered introduction of the policy for firms of different sizes to assess the policy effect on firm hiring behaviour. We find no evidence that the policy affected the number of hires by firms on average, either overall or into employment that lasted beyond the trial period. We also do not find an effect on hiring of disadvantaged jobseekers. However, our results suggest that the policy increased hiring in industries with high use of trial periods by 10.3 percent.

We have prepared this working paper to address a sizeable knowledge gap – to assess the impact of emerging technologies on five key manufacturing and services sectors in the ASEAN region. The sectors were chosen because they are significant contributors to growth and employment in the region. In manufacturing, we look at: (1) automotive and auto parts, (2) electrical and electronics, and (3) textile, clothing and footwear. In services, we review: (4) business process outsourcing, and (5) retail. Throughout the report, major technological trends permeating and transforming each sector are identified and the implications for enterprises and the workforce over a ten-year time period are analysed.

The twin forces of technological change and globalization are reshaping the global economy in multiple and important ways. Nowhere are their effects more pronounced than in labor markets. Considerable attention is now being devoted to analyzing and anticipating changing patterns of employment and wages in advanced economies. Thus far, less focus has been given to understanding the implications for emerging economies. The 2016 Brookings Blum Roundtable was convened to take on that agenda. How are the factors driving change in global labor markets playing out differently in developing economies? What are the jobs of the future and how will the terms of employment differ? What skills will those job demand and how will those skills be acquired? And finally, what are the implications of these changes for development prospects and for society? This essay provides a brief account of the roundtable conversation. It is followed by six essays, authored by leading experts on this topic, that were commissioned to inform the roundtable discussion.

Everyone talks about it, but many are questioning what concrete artificial intelligence (AI) and how it will change the working environment of each within companies. Ramy Sedra is associated consulting and analytical national leader for PwC. It supports companies who wish to take the path of AI in the demystifying and helping to determine which tasks could be assigned. [googletranslate_en]

We need to start putting workers at the centre of the debate about the future of work and ensure they are equipped with the skills that will be needed.