Digital technologies, employment, and skills

This article investigates the relationship between the diffusion of digital technologies, employment, and skills. The empirical analysis is carried out on industry-level data of six major European economies (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK) over the 2009–2014 period. We analyze two dimensions of digitalization: industries’ consumption of intermediate inputs from digitally intensive sectors and investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tangible and intangible assets, considering also patterns of demand, education, technological change, and offshoring. The results show that job creation in industries is positively associated with an increasing share of digital goods and services in total intermediate inputs and is negatively linked with processes of ICT capital deepening. We then explore how these two different patterns of digitalization are related to the evolution of four occupational groups—managers, clerks, craft, and Manual workers, defined on the basis of International Standard Classification of Occupations classes—finding a positive link between ICT consumption and managerial jobs, and negative ones between digital variables and mid-skill occupations.