New Tasks in Old Jobs: Drivers of Change and Implications for Job Quality

This overview report summarises the findings of 20 case studies looking at recent changes in the task content of five manufacturing occupations (car assemblers, meat processing workers, hand-packers, chemical products plant and machine operators and inspection engineers) as a result of factors such as digital transformations, globalisation and offshoring, increasing demand for high quality standards and sustainability. It also discusses some implications in terms of job quality and working life. The study reveals that the importance of physical tasks in manufacturing is generally declining due to automation; that more intensive use of digitally controlled equipment, together with increasing importance of quality standards, involve instead a growing amount of intellectual tasks for manual industrial workers; and that the amount of routine task content is still high in the four manual occupations studied. Overall, the report highlights how qualitative contextual information can complement existing quantitative data, offering a richer understanding of changes in the content and nature of jobs

Essays on Labour Market Inequalities in the United Kingdom

In this work, we aim at investigating recent trends and developments in the British labour market. This dissertation is composed of three research papers that present and discuss different aspects of labour market inequalities in the United Kingdom. The first and the second chapters are solo papers, while the third one is co-authored with Prof. Paul Gregg and Prof. Paul Clarke. In the first chapter, we analyze recent changes in the labour market structure at the occupational level in Britain. Using data from the UK Skills Surveys between 1997 and 2006, we present evidence of job polarisation, that is a shift from a monotonic to a U-shaped relationship between growth in employment share and occupation's percentile in the wage distribution. We interpret the evolution of occupational employment from a task-based perspective exploring Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) model's predictions. We find that high-paying occupations which increased the most can be safely classified as non-manual non-routine, while middling-paying occupations which have lost significant employment shares are predominantly routine (both manual and non-manual). The task content of low-paying occupations is more mixed, with elementary occupations being predominantly manual and service occupations scoring higher in the interpersonal dimension, and the routine dimension appears more difficult to evaluate. We also explore the relationship between computarisation and routine task inputs and our findings are consistent with the Autor, Levy and Murnane (2003) "routinisation hypothesis". The second chapter investigates recent changes in the occupational distribution of immigrants in the United Kingdom and it deals with the effects of immigration on local labour markets. We empirically test the predictions of Peri and Sparber (2009) model of comparative advantage in tasks performance to evaluate whether less-skilled natives responded to increasing immigration inflows of similarly educated workers by shifting their provision of task supplies. Using Labour Force Survey (LFS) and UK Skills Survey data from 1997 through 2006, we find that an increase in the foreign-born share has a signicant positive effect on natives' relative communication task supply. In order to cope with potential endogeneity of the share of immigrants, we construct a suitable instrumental variable based on past immigration concentrations. We also show that this effect vary across demographic groups, being higher among men, young people and workers with primary education (or less) relatively to women, old people and workers with secondary education respectively. Finally, the third chapter investigates how the recent shift towards greater gender equality in labour market participation and wages plays out within households. We explore the implications of these huge changes for the evolution of the spousal wage gap and its relationship with the overall pay gap, changes in labour force participation and the level of assortative mating between partners. We present a statistical model which shows how the probability of a positive spousal wage gap depends on the average gender wage gap, the variance of the male and female wage distributions and on the level of sorting or assortative mating, based on wages, that there is among couples. Using the BHPS survey, we show how the model fits the data well and use it to explore what lies behind the observed decline in men earning more than their partners in terms of hourly wages. We then turn to changing participation patterns of men and women and how this affects our story. After correcting for sample selection, we show that women who are excluded from labour market participation are increasingly those with the lowest potential wage

Employment transitions and occupational mobility in Europe. The impact of the great recession

This study investigates employment and occupational mobility in Europe before and after the 2008 financial crisis, with the aim of linking individual-level employment transitions to the broad labour market developments during the crisis, such as the surge in unemployment and the phenomenon of job polarisation. The analysis compares six European countries that represent different institutional clusters – France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. It tracks the transitions of their working age populations into and out of inactivity, unemployment and employment (in five wage categories). The study seeks to better understand what happened to workers who lost their jobs during the recession, beyond the headline unemployment statistics. Did they find other work and, if so, was it better or worse paid? Were opportunities for upward occupational mobility affected by the crisis? The findings show that the countries studied fall into three distinct categories based on the degree of occupational mobility characterising their economiesEste estudio investiga el empleo y la movilidad ocupacional en Europa antes y después de la crisis financiera de 2008, con el objetivo de vincular las transiciones del empleo a nivel individual con la evolución general del mercado laboral durante la crisis, como el aumento del desempleo y el fenómeno de la polarización del empleo. El análisis compara seis países europeos que representan diferentes grupos institucionales: Francia, Italia, Polonia, España, Suecia y el Reino Unido. Hace un seguimiento de las transiciones de sus poblaciones en edad de trabajar hacia y desde la inactividad, el desempleo y el empleo (en cinco categorías salariales). El estudio pretende comprender mejor qué les sucedió a los trabajadores que perdieron sus empleos durante la recesión, más allá de las estadísticas de desempleo principales. ¿Encontraron otro trabajo y, de ser así, se les paga mejor o peor? ¿Se vieron afectadas por la crisis las oportunidades de movilidad profesional ascendente? Los resultados muestran que los países estudiados se dividen en tres categorías distintas en función del grado de movilidad profesional que caracteriza a sus economía

Real cost reduction and productivity increase in an individual industry: a price-accounting approach in theory and practice

The inter-industry diversity in productivity increase stimulated many studies on the industrial sources of economic growth. Much less efforts have been devoted to the study of the industrial sources of real income increase. Albeit from the standpoint of the economic system these aspects are two sides of the same coin, one can consistently trace back an observable change in real wages (in terms of a certain output) and in capital compensation to its industrial sources only by using data on prices, wages etc. and by fitting them into a consistent ‘price-accounting’ scheme of the industry. The conceptual framework presented in this paper is centered around the notion of ‘Real Cost Reduction’, its breakdown into components, and its outcome in terms of increasing labour and capital compensations. We also provide an illustration of the data sets required, of the qualitative results that can be obtained, and of some practical problems that need to be solved in order to extend the analysis and to compare its quantitative results with those of conventional industrial TFP analysis

Real cost reduction and productivity increase in an individual industry: a price-accounting approach in theory and practice

The inter-industry diversity in productivity increase stimulated many studies on the industrial sources of economic growth. Much less efforts have been devoted to the study of the industrial sources of real income increase. Albeit from the standpoint of the economic system these aspects are two sides of the same coin, one can consistently trace back an observable change in real wages (in terms of a certain output) and in capital compensation to its industrial sources only by using data on prices, wages etc. and by fitting them into a consistent ‘price-accounting’ scheme of the industry. The conceptual framework presented in this paper is centered around the notion of ‘Real Cost Reduction’, its breakdown into components, and its outcome in terms of increasing labour and capital compensations. We also provide an illustration of the data sets required, of the qualitative results that can be obtained, and of some practical problems that need to be solved in order to extend the analysis and to compare its quantitative results with those of conventional industrial TFP analysis

Real cost reduction and productivity increase in an individual industry: a price-accounting approach in theory and practice

The inter-industry diversity in productivity increase stimulated many studies on the industrial sources of economic growth. Much less efforts have been devoted to the study of the industrial sources of real income increase. Albeit from the standpoint of the economic system these aspects are two sides of the same coin, one can consistently trace back an observable change in real wages (in terms of a certain output) and in capital compensation to its industrial sources only by using data on prices, wages etc. and by fitting them into a consistent ‘price-accounting’ scheme of the industry. The conceptual framework presented in this paper is centered around the notion of ‘Real Cost Reduction’, its breakdown into components, and its outcome in terms of increasing labour and capital compensations. We also provide an illustration of the data sets required, of the qualitative results that can be obtained, and of some practical problems that need to be solved in order to extend the analysis and to compare its quantitative results with those of conventional industrial TFP analysis

Upward convergence in the EU: concepts, measurements and indicators

Dokumenty Evropského dokumentačního střediskaLuxembour

European Jobs Monitor 2019: Shifts in the employment structure at regional level

Accumulating evidence indicates that large metropolitan centres are faring much better than other regions within the Member States of the EU. Such interregional inequality contributes to disenchantment with existing political systems, which in turn can weaken the social bonds that ground democratic systems. This report analyses shifts in the employment structure – meaning change in the distribution of employment across occupations and sectors – of the EU regions. The analysis covers 130 regions of nine Member states, which together account for nearly four out of five EU workers. The study finds that regions within countries are becoming more occupationally different, but in similar ways. It also finds that cities have disproportionately high and rising shares of well-paid, high-skilled services employment alongside growth in low-paid employment. The findings support continued EU regional policy assistance of regions in danger of being left behind.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen

Trapping in irradiated p-on-n silicon sensors at fluences anticipated at the HL-LHC outer tracker

The degradation of signal in silicon sensors is studied under conditions expected at the CERN High-Luminosity LHC. 200 $\mu$m thick n-type silicon sensors are irradiated with protons of different energies to fluences of up to $3 \cdot 10^{15}$ neq/cm$^2$. Pulsed red laser light with a wavelength of 672 nm is used to generate electron-hole pairs in the sensors. The induced signals are used to determine the charge collection efficiencies separately for electrons and holes drifting through the sensor. The effective trapping rates are extracted by comparing the results to simulation. The electric field is simulated using Synopsys device simulation assuming two effective defects. The generation and drift of charge carriers are simulated in an independent simulation based on PixelAV. The effective trapping rates are determined from the measured charge collection efficiencies and the simulated and measured time-resolved current pulses are compared. The effective trapping rates determined for both electrons and holes are about 50% smaller than those obtained using standard extrapolations of studies at low fluences and suggests an improved tracker performance over initial expectations