Documents occupational change 96 results

"Are labor markets more turbulent now than thirty years ago? Most job and worker flows imply that the answer is “no”, with one exception: occupational mobility, which increased substantially in the United States. This paper remedies the lack of comparable evidence by focusing on France for the years 1982 to 2009. After correcting for various statistical biases and discrepancies that affect the measurement of occupational mobility, it documents this reallocation process overall and in different subgroups. The data reveal that, over the period considered, the fraction of workers switching occupation exhibits no trend in the aggregate because changing demographics mask increases in mobility within several age and education groups. After taking these composition effects into account, occupational mobility increased sharply in France as well."

"The paper analyses the effects of occupational and regional mobility on the matching rate using monthly panel data disaggregated at the regional and occupational level. The main contribution of the paper is to measure the effect of substitutability between vacancies in different occupations, and vacancies in different regions on the matching rate. The estimates indicate higher regional mobility in West Germany but higher occupational mobility in East Germany. The results show that if occupations were perfect substitutes, then the number of matches could increase by 5–9 per cent. Perfect regional mobility would increase matchings by 5–15 per cent. It is also shown that partial aggregation causes a downward bias in substitutability estimates."

"We analyse occupational change over the last two decades in Britain, Germany, Spain and Switzerland: which jobs have been expanding—high-paid jobs, low-paid jobs or both? Based on individual-level data, four hypotheses are examined: skill-biased technical change, routinization, skill supply evolution and wage-setting institutions. We find massive occupational upgrading which matches educational expansion: employment expanded most at the top of the occupational hierarchy, among managers and professionals. In parallel, intermediary occupations (clerks and production workers) declined relative to those at the bottom (interpersonal service workers). This U-shaped pattern of upgrading is consistent with the routinization hypothesis: technology seems a better substitute for average-paid clerical and manufacturing jobs than for low-end interpersonal service jobs. Yet country differences in low-paid services suggest that wage-setting institutions channel technological change into more or less polarized patterns of upgrading. Moreover, immigration surges in Britain and Spain seem decisive in having provided the low-skilled labour supply necessary to fill low-paid jobs. "

"We use British and German panel data to analyse job changes involving a change in occupation. We assess: (1) the extent of occupational change, taking into account the possibility of measurement error in occupational codes; (2) whether job changes within the occupation differ from occupation changes in terms of the characteristics of those making such switches; and (3) the effects of the two kinds of moves in respect of wages and job satisfaction. We find that occupation changes differ from other job changes, generally reflecting a less satisfactory employment situation, but also that the move in both cases is positive in respect of change in wages and job satisfaction."

"Given the rapid adoption of generative AI and its potential to impact a wide range of tasks, understanding the effects of AI on the economy is one of society's most important questions. In this work, we analyze the work activities people do with AI, how successfully and broadly those activities are done, and combine that with data on what occupations do those activities. We analyze a dataset of 200k anonymized and privacy-scrubbed conversations between users and Microsoft Bing Copilot, a publicly available generative AI system. We find the most common work activities people seek AI assistance for involve gathering information and writing, while the most common activities that AI itself is performing are providing information and assistance, writing, teaching, and advising. Combining these activity classifications with measurements of task success and scope of impact, we compute an AI applicability score for each occupation. We find the highest AI applicability scores for knowledge work occupation groups such as computer and mathematical, and office and administrative support, as well as occupations such as sales whose work activities involve providing and communicating information. Additionally, we characterize the types of work activities performed most successfully, how wage and education correlate with AI applicability, and how real-world usage compares to predictions of occupational AI impact."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of digital technologies on work and occupations in Europe, critically reassessing dominant narratives of mass unemployment and job polarisation. The report synthesises work done by the JRC Employment team over the last years. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research, the report introduces an analytical framework distinguishing three main vectors of change: automation, the replacement of labour by machines; digitisation, the increasing use of digital tools in work processes; and platformisation, the use of digital platforms for coordinating work. Contrary to widespread fears, our research finds that the impact of automation, such as industrial robots, on net employment levels in recent decades has been modest and often positive. While specific tasks are automated, this has primarily boosted productivity and led to a reallocation of labour rather than a net destruction of jobs. The most profound transformation stems from digitisation. This process, while enhancing efficiency, has fundamentally altered work organisation by enabling unprecedented levels of standardisation, monitoring, and managerial control. This creates a central paradox: while employment shifts away from routine occupations, work processes within many non-routine professional roles are becoming increasingly routinised and subject to digital control, impacting worker autonomy and job quality. Finally, the report identifies the rise of platformisation, not just in the gig economy, but as a logic of algorithmic management and surveillance extending into traditional workplaces. This trend is reshaping the nature of workplace control across the economy. Analysis of occupational structures reveals that job upgrading, rather than job polarisation, has been the most common pattern of change across the EU, driven largely by the growth of high-skilled service sector jobs. The report concludes that the primary impact of the digital era on work is a qualitative transformation in its nature, focusing on coordination, control, and job quality. The effects of technology are not deterministic; they are strongly mediated by institutional frameworks, with regulation and collective bargaining playing a crucial role in shaping outcomes for workers in the digital age."

"Self-reported tenure is often used to determine job changes. We show there are substantial inconsistencies in these responses; consequently, we risk misclassifying job changes as stays and vice versa. An estimator from Hausman et al. is applied to a job change model for Ireland, and we find that ignoring misclassification may substantially underestimate the true number of changes and lead to diminished covariate effects. The main contribution of the paper is to control for misclassification when estimating the wage effects of job mobility. A two-step approach is adopted. We find ignoring misclassification leads to a significant downwards bias in the wage impact, and we provide an estimate that corrects for measurement error."