Four WeLaR researchers presented the findings of their earlier research at a conference organised by sister project UNTANGLED: “Labour market effects and social impact of technological transformation, globalisation and demographic change” on 9 November in Brussels.
During a session devoted to technological change and employment, Piotr Lewandowski (Institute for Structural Research – IBS) discussed research conducted jointly with Karina Doorley, Jan Gromadzki, Dora Tuda and Philippe Van Kerm on the impact of automation on income inequality in Europe. Their preliminary results show that even though automation impacted employment rates and wages in most European countries, its effect on household income inequality was very small.
Ludivine Martin (LISER) presented a paper titled “Boom of Digital Skills: Recent Labour Market Dynamics in Western European Countries”, written jointly with Kamil Filipek, in the session on skills and education. The authors’ preliminary results show that the existing classification of digital skills does not follow the dynamics of these skills in the labour market, and that purely technical skills are not in the highest demand. Moreover, the Covid pandemic lowered the demand for some domains of digital skills.
Sandra Leitner (Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies – wiiw) presented a paper titled: “Employment Effects of Offshoring, Technological Change, and Migration in a Group of Western European Economies: Impact on Different Occupations”, written jointly with Michael Landesmann. The paper finds that, holding output fixed, offshoring has positive employment effects for craft workers but negative effects for managers and professionals in the manufacturing sector. Adoption of IT solutions (computer hardware) has positive employment effects for all groups of workers except for manual workers, while robotisation and migration have negative employment effects for all groups.
In the session devoted to firms and households, Fabrizio Pompei (Università degli Studi di Perugia) discussed his and Francesco Venturini’s paper titled: “Firm-level Productivity and Profitability Effects of Managerial and Organisational Capabilities and Innovations”. The authors show that developing AI technologies and adopting ISO 9001 standards helps laggard companies boost productivity and close the gap with top performers.
