Economics Seminar: Employee Involvement, Technology and Evolution in Job Skills: A Task-Based Analysis

When?

Wednesday 2 March 2011, 16:00

Where?

04AD00

Open to:

Public, Staff, Students

Speaker:

Prof Francis Green (Institute of Education)

Prof Francis Green (Institute of Education)

"Employee Involvement, Technology and Evolution in Job Skills: A Task-Based Analysis"

Abstract

Using task data for Britain I find that the use of literacy, other communication tasks and self-planning skills have grown especially fast. Numerical and problem-solving skills have also become more important, but repetitive physical skills have largely remained unchanged. The job skills are related to pay. The distribution and growth of job skills are linked with technology and work organisation. I draw on the nuanced theory of skill-biased technological change that emphasises the substitutability of routine tasks by computers. Computer use accounts for some of the increases in interactive and cognitive generic tasks, and for a decline in the relative intensity of repetitive physical tasks. Beyond a pure technological account, however, I find that employee involvement raises the sorts of generic skills that human resource management models predict. Finally, the paper shows that the rising generic skill requirements account for increasing levels of required education for job entry.