Dr Sierdjan Koster from University of Groningen will presenting a paper entitled "Automatization and Regional Labour Markets in Europe" this Thursday as part of the Economics Speaker Series.
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS VISITING SPEAKER SERIES
Dr Sierdjan Koster from University of Groningen will presenting a paper entitled "Automatization and Regional Labour Markets in Europe" this Thursday as part of the Economics Speaker Series.
| Date | Thursday December 07 |
| Time | 2:00 pm |
| Venue | Room G26, Aras na Laoi, UCC |
Abstract
Ever since the influential work by Frey and Osborne (2013), there has been a lively debate on the combined labour market effects of robotization, automatization and computerization. Starting from the premise that automatization of production processes will result in job-losses, the discussion has focused on two aspects. First, repeat studies propose different methods of identifying those jobs that run the risk of being replaced. As a result, the size of the job-loss effect has been debated. Second, there is a debate focusing on the counteracting job-creation effect. This effect tends to be overlooked, but new types of job may emerge in the wake of automatization processes: Job-restructuring may be equally important as job losses.
The regional dimension in the labour market effects of automatization has been largely ignored so far, while it is reasonable to expect that there are large differences in the regional outcomes. Regional industry structures vary tremendously, for example, and also the educational levels across regions are unequal. Both examples suggest important variation in the vulnerability of regions to these effects. Understanding this variation is crucial given the increased decentralized responsibility for the provision of social welfare. Also, given the locational inertia of both firms and people, the effects tend to be regionally bounded. This study takes an explicit regional perspective to the job effects of automatization and it has two contributions. Firstly, the study offers an account of the European regional differences in the vulnerability to automatization processes. Secondly, we explore labour market strategies deployed by people ‘at risk’ of losing their jobs to automatization.
The analysis is based on information derived from the European Labour Force surveys enhanced with readily available regional data from Eurostat.
Reference
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, 254-280.
All very welcome to attend.
For more information, contact the Department of Economics
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