Technological change and its impacts on labour markets are a much-discussed topic in economics. Economists generally assume that new technology penetrating the labour market shifts firms' task demand. Given individuals' acquired and supplied skills, these task demand shifts potentially foster...

The uniqueness of human labour is at question in times of smart technologies. The 250 years-old discussion on technological unemployment reawakens. Frey and Osborne (2013) estimate that half of US employment will be automated by algorithms within the next 20 years. Other follow-up studies...

Digital technologies will both create new jobs and replace existing ones. To cope with increasing labor market dynamics in the digital age, workers will have to become more mobile across jobs, occupations, and industries. The relative importance of their job-specific skills will decrease while...

The wave of digital-industrial innovation which begins to disrupt vast sectors of the global economy has fueled fear of a potential adverse impact on jobs and wages. This paper argues that digitalindustrial innovations make human capital more important than ever and the focus needs to shift to...

After a decade in which wages and employment fell precipitously in low-skill occupations and expanded in high-skill occupations, the shape of U.S. earnings and job growth sharply polarized in the 1990s. Employment shares and relative earnings rose in both low and high-skill jobs, leading to a...

Based on the methodology proposed by Frey and Osborne (2017), we use their estimates for the probability of automation of occupations together with household survey data on the occupational distribution of employment to provide a risk assessment for the threat that automation may pose to the...

This paper studies the effects of the apprenticeship system on innovation and labor market polarization. A stylized model with two key features is developed: (1) apprentices are more productive due to industry-specific training, but (2) from the firm's perspective, when training apprentices,...

A new wave of innovation is beginning to disrupt industry on a global scale. It constitutes a tremendous opportunity for faster productivity growth, but also a potential disruption to a number of economic sectors and to job markets. Academic research and the public debate have focused mostly on...