Middle-skilled Workers Research Articles

A Network Analysis of the Relationship Between Automation and Job Characteristics

The purpose of this study is to identify core occupational characteristics that affect the potential for a job to be automated and to reveal the relationship and paths between those characteristics, such as skill(s), work environment and knowledge. In this study, a network was estimated and visualised to identify the relationship between occupational characteristics using the Gaussian graphical model method and to reveal the occupational characteristics linked to the potential for automation variable. As a result of estimating and visualising the network, it was found that the occupational characteristics with low potential for automation were art, decision-making, assisting and caring for others and working in cramped spaces, while those with high potential for automation involved repeating the same tasks. Furthermore, after analysing the shortest paths from each occupational characteristic node to the automation node, it was revealed that even occupational characteristics with high potential for automation can have varying levels of automation possibility depending on the mediators. Based on the results, education and vocational training policies for low- and middle-skill workers, young workers and potential workers are suggested.

How middle-skilled workers adjust to immigration: the role of occupational skill specificity

PurposeOur study explores the effects of immigration on the employment of native middle-skilled workers, focusing on how this effect varies with the specificity of their occupational skill bundles.Design/methodology/approachExploiting the 2002 opening of the Swiss labor market to EU workers and using register data on the location and occupation of these workers, our findings provide novel results on the labor market effects of immigration.FindingsWe show that the inflow of EU workers led to an increase in the employment of native middle-skilled workers with highly specific occupational skills. This finding could be attributed to immigrant workers reducing existing skill gaps, enhancing the quality of job-worker matches, and alleviating firms' capacity restrictions. This allowed firms to create new jobs, thereby providing increased employment options for middle-skilled workers with highly specialized skills.Originality/valuePrevious literature has predominantly highlighted the disadvantages of specific occupational skills compared to general skills in the context of labor market shocks. However, our findings reveal that workers with specific occupational skills can benefit from an immigration-driven labour market shock. These results suggest that policy conclusions regarding the role of specific occupational skills should be more nuanced.

Comparative Analysis of Texan CTE and Australian VET Programs

Texas is facing a worker deficit crisis for the nearly 1 million “middle skill” jobs requiring applicants to possess industry-based certifications earned through technical training and learning- think plumbers, dental assistants, estheticians, and mechanics. Since our society heavily depends on the contributions of middle-skilled workers for proper functioning, the recent deficit in qualified applicants has elicited significant operational disruptions throughout Texas. Career and Technical Education (CTE) is a secondary school framework that aims to “provide individuals with rigorous academic content and relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for further education and careers.” CTE is just one of the many avenues of advancement Texas schools are pursuing in hopes of graduating a new generation of career-ready citizens who can resolve the middle-skill worker crisis. However, CTE is far from perfect, and Texas could benefit greatly from referencing successes of international vocational frameworks to inform their curriculum decisions and revisions. This research outlines a comparative analysis of Texan CTE and Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) conducted using data from three avenues of query: subject matter expert interviews, CTE student survey results, and scholarly references. This analysis concluded that CTE is designed to expose students to diverse postgraduation career options, while VET places focus on students earning industry-based qualifications via on-site experience. In other words, CTE offers exploration of a breadth of vocational offerings, while VET offers depth of tangible outcomes for students in desired middle-skill industries. In reflecting on these discoveries, Texas would benefit from integrating aspects of the Australian School-Based Apprenticeship and Traineeship (SBAT) model into its present CTE framework to simultaneously address the middle-skilled worker crisis while providing students with a more fruitful and flexible educational experience.

Job polarisation and household borrowing

AbstractThe last few decades have seen transformative changes to the structure of employment, which have led to a deterioration in demand for middle-skill occupations, a process known as job polarisation. As demand for middle-skill workers shrinks, expectations about households’ income through their lifetime horizon must be adjusted. It is possible that these expectations loop back into the credit system and affect the lending behaviour of credit institutions or that they impact households’ self-assessment of their opportunities to borrow money. In this paper we study how the process of job polarisation affects credit demand and supply, studying its relationship with credit constraint and credit quality.

Services Liberalization and Manufacturing Employment Polarization: Evidence from Chinese Listed Manufacturing Firms

ABSTRACT Based on the panel data of Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2012 to 2020, this article examines the impact of services liberalization on the polarization of manufacturing employment from the perspective of workers’ skill structure. The study results show services liberalization exacerbates the polarization of manufacturing employment primarily through equipment upgrades and cost reductions in manufacturing firms, which means that services liberalization leads to an increase in the proportion of high-skilled and low-skilled workers in manufacturing and a decrease in the proportion of middle-skilled workers. The heterogeneity test notes that services liberalization has a more substantial employment effect on private firms, central and west region firms, small- and medium-sized firms, and firms in high-skilled industries. Services liberalization leads to employment polarization for private firms, firms in the west and central region, small- and medium-sized firms, large-sized firms, firms in high-skilled industries, and firms in low- and medium-skilled industries. This article has implications for the synergy between services liberalization policies and employment growth policies.

To the Economy and Workers: Challenges and Opportunity

The rapid development of automation and new technologies over nearly two centuries has sparked heated discussions. Programmable, repetitive jobs are being replaced by technology, leaving large numbers of middle-skilled workers unemployable, and causing employment difficulties. But at the same time, the development of automation has created new employment opportunities for another group of laborers. Similarly, the development of automation once accelerated economic growth, but as the development of automation slowed down, economic growth encountered a corresponding bottleneck as well. In this paper, it is mainly used to refer to the historical development of literature research, analyze and summarize, so that the observed specific situation can be summarized. In addition, there are also descriptive studies, which generally describe the experience of the predecessors, play a revealing role, and further analyze and demonstrate. The research questions in this paper revolve around the economic and workforce implications of advances in automation. The source of this thinking is that automation replaces labor, resulting in a large number of middle-skilled workers being unemployed and abandoned by the market because they do not have the ability to use new technologies. This group has a huge base in society, and improving this situation will help reduce poverty, break through the economic bottleneck. The conclusion of this paper is that workers need to improve their competitiveness in the market, and the government needs to adjust policies to adapt the labor force to the market, and that the market is close to meeting the employment needs of the labor force.

Adaptable middle-skilled labor: a neglected roadblock to photonics industry growth.

A roadblock to long-term growth of the photonics industry is the availability of well-trained, adaptable middle-skilled workers. This research characterizes the middle-skilled workforce gap, including the quantity required and skills needed. We estimate that 42,000 new technical middle-skilled workers are needed by 2030, requiring another 100 technician programs nationwide. Training skills along the supply chain are critical; programs must emphasize testing, troubleshooting, and process design. Middle-skilled workers trained in critical thinking will enable an adaptable workforce capable of handling technology evolution. Finally, recommendations for the academia, industry, and middle-skilled training ecosystem are included to ensure that the latter evolves with technology development.

Education expansion and high-skill job opportunities for workers: Does a rising tide lift all boats?

We examine how education expansions affect the job opportunities for workers with and without the new education. To identify causal effects, we exploit a quasi-random establishment of Universities of Applied Sciences (UASs), bachelor-granting three-year colleges that teach and conduct applied research. By applying machine-learning methods to job advertisement data, we analyze job content before and after the education expansion. We find that, in regions with the newly established UASs, not only job descriptions of the new UAS graduates but also job descriptions of workers without this degree (i.e., middle-skilled workers with vocational training) contain more high-skill job content. This upskilling in job content is driven by an increase in high-skill R&D-related tasks and linked to employment and wage gains. The task spillovers likely occur because UAS graduates with applied research skills build a bridge between middle-skilled workers and traditional university graduates, facilitating the integration of the former into R&D-related tasks.

How Middle-Skilled Workers Adjust to Immigration: The Role of Occupational Skill Specificity

How Middle-Skilled Workers Adjust to Immigration: The Role of Occupational Skill Specificity

Uncovering the socioeconomic impacts of China's power system decarbonization

Deep decarbonization in the power sector is one of the key pillars of the carbon-neutral energy system, while its socioeconomic benefits remain unexplored. We integrate a multi-regional input-output model with a multiplier acceleration model to simulate the impacts of China's power decarbonization ambitions on the economy, employment, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Two scenarios are set to simulate the socio-economic impacts of China's decarbonization in 2030 and 2050, respectively. Increasing penetration of clean power substantially decreases GHG emissions. However, without the basis of adequate socioeconomic policy, this transition may not benefit the sustainable development of the economy and employment. The GHG emissions in 2030 decreases by 15.22% compared with 2015 in China's power decarbonization investment scenario. Meanwhile, decarbonization creates inclusive growth in employment (1.02%) and the economy (1.21%). However, the renewable power sector creates 0.43 million jobs, whereas direct and indirect job losses total 2.04 million (fossil fuel power sector) and 19.18 million (construction, machinery manufacturing, chemicals, and coal mining sectors) in 2050 China's NZEE (net-zero emissions in the electricity sector) scenario. Middle-skilled workers account for 74.46% of total job losses, with a higher impact on males (67.37%) than on females (32.63%). China's overall economic loss from the transition is approximately 209.36 billion euros, though renewable power contributes 110.69 billion euros to economic growth. The direct GHG emissions reduction from the retirement of fossil fuel electricity eliminates the majority of total GHG emissions (89.65%). The results from this study have enormous implications for other countries that strive for their own decarbonization goals. The economic and employment consequence of the decarbonization of the electricity sector indicate that the government and policy makers should focus on establishing long-term economic stimulus policies and offering pre-vocational worker education to ensure sustainable socioeconomic development.

Does Skill Polarization Affect Wage Polarization? U.S. Evidence 2009–2021

(1) Background: Wage polarization and skill polarization are frequently mentioned in the literature, but relatively few empirical studies have focused on the relationship between skill polarization and wage polarization. (2) Methods: Using occupation–skill data from the O*NET database in the United States from 2009 to 2021, this study constructs the occupational socio-cognitive skill scores and the number of perceived physical skills effectively used by an occupation as proxies for measuring skill polarization and matches the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data from the corresponding years to explore the relationship between skill polarization and wage polarization by using 2SLS. (3) Results: Increases in both the occupational socio-cognitive skills scores and the number of sensory–physical skills effectively used by an occupation lead to higher wages, but the magnitude of the positive effects of these two indicators are different. We also find that these control variables can reduce occupational wages with a lagged effect. (4) Conclusion: Our findings confirm that skills polarization has a positive effect on wage polarization, providing new insights into understanding employment inequality in the labor market. Authorities should focus more attention on increasing the earnings of the low- and middle-skilled workers, especially through vocational skills training to increase the number of sensory–physical skills that can ultimately mitigate wage polarization.

Spatial Polarisation*

Abstract We document the emergence of spatial polarisation in the United States during the 1980–2008 period. This phenomenon is characterised by stronger employment polarisation in larger cities, both at the occupational and the worker levels. We quantitatively evaluate the role of technology in generating these patterns by constructing and calibrating a spatial equilibrium model. We find that faster skill-biased technological change in larger cities can account for a substantial fraction of spatial polarisation in the United States. Counterfactual exercises suggest that the differential increase in the share of low-skilled workers across city size is due mainly to the large demand by high-skilled workers for low-skilled services and, to a smaller extent, to the higher complementarity between low- and high-skilled workers in production relative to middle-skilled workers.

Wage Polarization in the Context of the Czech Republic

Abstract Existing studies have provided evidence of job polarization in many developed countries. The issue of wage polarization is less obvious: many articles do not address it at all, and some even confuse it with job polarization. At the same time, the significance of the phenomenon of polarization results precisely from the consequence of wage polarization: the increase in wage inequality. The aim of this article is to find out whether wage polarization occurred in the Czech Republic during the period 2004–2018. Wage development in the private sphere does not imply wage polarization, but in the public sphere, results imply a very slight wage polarization mainly due to the development between 2004 and 2010. This phenomenon has occurred in both male and female occupations. Panel regression analysis shows that globalization reduces upper-tail inequality (the ratio Q90/Q50) while increasing lower-tail inequality (the ratio Q50/Q10). At the level of the whole economy, technology seems to contribute to reducing both upper-tail and lower-tail inequality. These results probably correspond to the nature of the Czech economy, which is based on middle-skilled workers with a pro-export focus.

Difficulties in finding middle-skilled jobs under increased automation

AbstractThis study investigates the labor market under increased automation of middle-skilled jobs wherein worker suitability for these jobs is considered. We examine two effects of increased automation on workers. The first effect is the possibility of replacement of middle-skilled workers by machines. The second effect is the diversity in job mismatch probabilities of workers. If machines perform a worker’s suitable jobs more (or less) than the worker’s unsuitable jobs, then the worker’s job mismatch probability rises (or declines). Because workers who have larger job mismatch probabilities remain job seekers, it is more difficult for a firm to find a suitable worker. Due to these two effects, underemployment rises.

Polarisation or Jobless Growth? Structural Changes and Employment Trends in the Indian Labour Market: Evidence from the National Sample Survey

Using the Indian National Sample Surveys and Participatory Labour Force Survey this paper presents a descriptive analysis of the role of education, occupation, wages and intersectoral movement of labour on the evolving demand for skills over the period of 1999-00 to 2017-18. First, the paper examines whether the increase in share of high-skill and low-skill workers is seen alongside a consequent decline in the middle-skilled workers. Second, if this change has had any unfavourable consequences on the low-skilled workers. Although an increase in demand for both high- and low-skill workers is observed, such an increase in the informal sector is largely attributed to self-employed workers. The proportion of middle-skill occupations have remained consistent for urban areas while reduced considerably for rural areas and the supply of workers with middle and secondary education are large and have remained so. A clear distress in agriculture is seen. While income security schemes and regulation of the informal workforce may reduce the social cost of increasing job polarisation, a deeper problem of skill shortage requires conscious handling.

Adult education and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: an international perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression. Although countries responded quickly to support displaced workers with assistance packages and funding for education and training, additional measures might be needed. Each country's economic recovery will most likely depend on how well its workforce is prepared to meet the needs of the changed labour market. Providing workers with opportunities to upskill or reskill is of major importance in meeting these challenges and improving low- and middle-skilled workers' re-employment prospects. This qualitative study examines measures taken in response to COVID19 in adult education and training (AET) in seven countries. The findings are based on key informant interviews with international experts and online sources they provided. Some countries have increased government funding for vocational and continuing education or offered financial support for post-secondary students while others have provided funds to employers to offer training and retraining for their employees.

Computerization, obsolescence and the length of working life

This paper analyzes how computerization affected the labor market outcomes of older workers between 1984 and 2017. Using the computerization supplements of the Current Population Survey (CPS) we show that different occupations were computerized at different times, older workers tended to start using computers with a delay compared to younger workers, but computer use within occupations converged to the same levels across age groups eventually. That is, there was a temporary knowledge gap between younger and older workers in most occupations. Using this variation, we estimate how this knowledge gap affected older workers’ labor market outcomes using millions of observations from the CPS, and additional data from the Health and Retirement Study. Our models control for occupation and time fixed effects and in some models, we also control for full occupation-time interactions and use middle aged (age 40-49) workers as the control group. We find strong and robust negative effects of the knowledge gap on wages, and a large, temporary increase in transitions from work to non-participation. These results are consistent with a model of creative destruction in which the computerization of jobs made older workers’ skills obsolete in birth cohorts that experienced computerization relatively late in their careers. We find larger effects on females and on middle-skilled workers.

The Robot Revolution: Managerial and Employment Consequences for Firms

As a new general-purpose technology, robots have the potential to radically transform employment and organizations. In contrast to prior studies that predict dramatic employment declines, we find that investments in robotics are associated with increases in total firm employment but decreases in the total number of managers. Similarly, we find that robots are associated with an increase in the span of control for supervisors remaining within the organization. We also provide evidence that robot adoption is not motivated by the desire to reduce labor costs but is instead related to improving product and service quality. Our findings are consistent with the notion that robots reduce variance in production processes, diminishing the need for managers to monitor worker activities to ensure production quality. As additional evidence, we also find that robot investments predict improved performance measurement and increased adoption of incentive pay based on individual employee performance. With respect to changes in skill composition within the organization, robots predict decreases in employment for middle-skilled workers but increases in employment for low- and high-skilled workers. We also find that robots predict not only changes in employment but also corresponding adaptations in organizational structure. Robot investments are associated with both centralization and decentralization of decision-making authority depending on the task, but decision rights in either case are reassigned away from the managerial level of the hierarchy. Overall, our results suggest that robots have distinct and profound effects on employment and organizations that require fundamental changes in firm practices and organizational design.This paper was accepted by Lamar Pierce, organizations.

Computerization, Obsolescence, and the Length of Working Life

This paper analyzes how computerization affected the labor market outcomes of older workers between 1984 and 2017. Using the computerization supplements of the Current Population Survey (CPS) we show that different occupations were computerized at different times, older workers tended to start using computers with a delay compared to younger workers, but computer use within occupations converged to the same levels across age groups eventually. That is, there was a temporary knowledge gap between younger and older workers in most occupations. We estimate how this knowledge gap affected older workers’ labor market outcomes using data from the CPS and the Health and Retirement Study. Our models control for occupation and time fixed effects and in some models; we also control for full occupation-time interactions and use middle aged (age 40-49) workers as the control group. We find strong and robust negative effects of the knowledge gap on wages, and a large, temporary increase in transitions from work to non-participation, consistent with a model of creative destruction in which the computerization of jobs made older workers’ skills obsolete in birth cohorts that experienced computerization relatively late in their careers. We find larger effects on females and on middle-skilled workers. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Entry-Level Workplace Competencies Needed by Graduates of a Community College Agriculture Program: A Midwest Case Study Using the Delphi Technique

Community colleges have a strong history of providing vocational education and occupational training to meet changing workforce demands of local industries. In the Midwest, agricultural industries have expressed an expanding need for middle-skilled workers with postsecondary, prebaccalaureate credentials. The 21st century agricultural landscape has changed as a result of the need for efficiency and sustainability, and resulting emergent agricultural technologies. Community colleges will be integral to establishing a qualified agriculture workforce for entry-level, middle-skilled positions. This study utilized a modified Delphi approach to identify entry-level workplace competencies needed by graduates of a community college agriculture program. Delphi panel experts represented leaders from the agronomy-based agriculture industry within the college's district, and initially identified 87 desired workforce competencies. Fifty-eight competencies achieved consensus from the Delphi panel and were categorized by themes: soft skills (26), agronomy-based technical skills (12), technology-based technical skills (9), agriculture mechanic/operator-based technical skills (3), general technical skills (4), and agribusiness-based technical skills (4). Results of this study can be used to inform community college agriculture program development and can be used as a case study for assessing workforce needs of local agricultural industries.