The Evolution of Skills in OECD Countries and the Role of Technology

The aim of this paper is two-fold: to highlight stylised facts about recent trends in the skill distribution of employment and to analyse the role that technological change might have in explaining these dynamics. Data on industrial employment broken down by occupation recently assembled by the OECD Secretariat are used to examine the changing skill composition of OECD economies, the occupational structure of industry and services, and the dynamics of upskilling. They show that in most OECD countries during the 1980s, employment grew fastest in high-skilled jobs and slowest – or declined – in low-skilled jobs. The upskilling trend is more apparent in manufacturing than in services, while overall the shift to higher skilled jobs has occurred primarily within industries, rather than between them. Econometric work that explores the role of technology in the changing skill mix in five of the G7 countries in the 1980s shows that upskilling has occurred faster in industries that have ... L’objectif de ce document est double : mettre en evidence les grandes lignes de l’evolution recente de la structure de l’emploi par niveau de qualification et analyser le role que peuvent y jouer les mutations technologiques. Les donnees sur l’emploi industriel ventilees par profession, recemment reunies par le Secretariat de l’OCDE, permettent d’examiner l’evolution de la structure des economies de l’OCDE par niveau de qualification, la structure professionnelle des industries et des services et la dynamique du relevement des qualifications. Ces donnees font apparaitre que dans la plupart des pays de l’OCDE, au cours des annees 80, l’emploi s’est accru plus rapidement dans les professions hautement qualifiees et plus lentement – dans les professions peu qualifiees – lorsqu’il n’a pas recule. Le relevement des qualifications est plus patent dans les industries manufacturieres que dans les services, mais dans l’ensemble cette evolution au profit des emplois plus qualifies est ...

[1]  Kenneth R. Troske,et al.  Workers, Wages, and Technology , 1997 .

[2]  Edward N. Wolff,et al.  Technology and the Demand for Skills , 1995 .

[3]  Ernst R. Berndt,et al.  High-Tech Capital Formation and Labor Composition in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: An Exploratory Analysis , 1992 .

[4]  Morris Teubal,et al.  Restructuring and Embeddeness Of Business Enterprises - Towards An Innovation System Perspective On Diffusion Policy , 1997 .

[5]  D. Siegel.  The Impact of Computers on Manufacturing Productivity Growth: A Multiple-Indicators, Multiple-Causes Approach , 1997, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[6]  V. Caron,et al.  United states. , 2018, Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987).

[7]  Z. Griliches,et al.  Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U. S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufactures , 1994 .

[8]  Gary W. Loveman,et al.  A Comparison of Changes in the Structure of Wages , 1993 .

[9]  F. Lichtenberg,et al.  The Comparative Advantage of Educated Workers in Implementing New Technology , 1987 .

[10]  Paul Schreyer,et al.  Short-Term Indicators: Using Qualitative Indicators to Update Production Indices , 1996 .

[11]  George Papaconstantinou,et al.  Embodied Technology Diffusion: An Empirical Analysis for 10 OECD Countries , 1996 .

[12]  Richard B. Freeman,et al.  Are Your Wages Set in Beijing , 1995 .

[13]  John R. Baldwin,et al.  Technology Use, Training and Plant-Specific Knowledge in Manufacturing Establishments , 1995 .

[14]  A. Glyn.  THE ASSESSMENT: UNEMPLOYMENT AND INEQUALITY , 1995 .

[15]  Donald F. Barnett.  Factors Influencing the Steel Work Force: 1980 to 1995 , 1996 .

[16]  S. Davis.  Cross-Country Patterns of Change in Relative Wages , 1992, NBER Macroeconomics Annual.

[17]  Stephen Machin,et al.  Technology and Changes in Skill Structure: Evidence from an International Panel of Industries , 1996 .

[18]  R. Baldwin.  The Effects of Trade and Foreign Direct Investment on Employment and Relative Wages , 1995 .

[19]  Alison Young,et al.  Measuring R&D in the Services , 1996 .

[20]  Brian Bell,et al.  THE COLLAPSE IN DEMAND FOR THE UNSKILLED AND UNEMPLOYMENT ACROSS THE OECD , 1995 .