Events

Prof. John-Paul Ferguson
Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour
McGill University

Who gets the jobs that automation creates? From prior studies, a consensus has begun to emerge that said technologies complement rather than substitute for labor. However, they also shift the demand for specific types of skills and other worker competencies. Such shifts imply unequal demographic impacts; but beyond age, such impacts are largely unexplored. We build a unique dataset to examine the establishment-level employment impacts of automation capital stock by race and occupation. We find that most job creation happens among frontline workers, rather than among managers. However, the net frontline changes benefit black and white workers to the detriment of Hispanic workers. Black and Hispanic managers meanwhile decline in absolute numbers. We discuss the research and policy implications of these shifts.