Routinization, within-occupation task changes and long-run employment dynamics

The present study adds to the literature on routinization and employment by capturing within-occupation task changes over the period 1980-2010. The main contributions are the measurement of such changes and the combination of two data sources on occupational task content for the United States: the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the Occupational Information Network. We show that within-occupation reorientation away from routine tasks: i) accounts for 1/3 of the decline in routine-task use; ii) accelerates in the 1990s, decelerates in the 2000s but with significant convergence across occupations; iii) allows workers to escape the employment and wage decline, conditional on the initial level of routine-task intensity. The latter finding suggests that task reorientation is a key channel through which labour markets adapt to various forms of labour-saving technological change.

CONSOLI Davide;  MARIN Giovanni;  RENTOCCHINI Francesco;  VONA Francesco; 

2023-02-01

ELSEVIER

JRC131119

0048-7333 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733322001792?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC131119,   

10.1016/j.respol.2022.104658 (online),