The_Future_of_Employment

Titles (DOT), last revised in 1991, we rely on the 2010 version of the DOT successor
O∗NET – an online service developed for the US Department of Labor. 4
Accordingly, O∗NET has the advantage of providing more recent information
on occupational work activities.
Second, our study relates to the literature examining the offshoring of information-based
tasks to foreign worksites (Jensen and Kletzer, 2005; Blinder,
2009; Jensen and Kletzer, 2010; Oldenski, 2012; Blinder and Krueger, 2013).
This literature consists of different methodologies to rank and categorise occupations
according to their susceptibility to offshoring. For example, using
O∗NET data on the nature of work done in different occupations, Blinder (2009)
estimates that 22 to 29 percent of US jobs are or will be offshorable in the next
decade or two. These estimates are based on two defining characteristics of jobs
that cannot be offshored: (a) the job must be performed at a specific work location;
and (b) the job requires face-to-face personal communication. Naturally,
the characteristics of occupations that can be offshored are different from the
characteristics of occupations that can be automated. For example, the work of
cashiers, which has largely been substituted by self- service technology, must
be performed at specific work location and requires face-to-face contact. The
extent of computerisation is therefore likely to go beyond that of offshoring.
Hence, while the implementation of our methodology is similar to that of Blinder
(2009), we rely on different occupational characteristics.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Section II, we review
the literature on the historical relationship between technological progress and
employment. Section III describes recent and expected future technological
developments. In Section IV, we describe our methodology, and in Section V,
we examine the expected impact of these technological developments on labour
market outcomes. Finally, in Section VI, we derive some conclusions.
II.
A HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS AND EMPLOYMENT
The concern over technological unemployment is hardly a recent phenomenon.
Throughout history, the process of creative destruction, following technological
inventions, has created enormous wealth, but also undesired disruptions.
As stressed by Schumpeter (1962), it was not the lack of inventive ideas that
4 An exception is Goos, et al. (2009).
5