The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms

Article dans une revue: Using administrative employee-firm-level data on the entire private sector from 1994 to 2007, we show that the labor market in France has polarized: employment shares of high and low wage occupations grew, while middle wage occupations shrank. At the same time, the share of technology-related occupations (“techies”) grew substantially. Aggregate polarization was driven mostly by changes in the composition of firms within industries. Within-firm adjustments and changes in industry composition were much less important. Polarization occured mostly within urban areas, with roughly equal contributions of men and women. We study the role of technology adoption in shaping firm-level outcomes using a new measure of the propensity of a firm to adopt new technology: its employment share of techies. We find that techies were an important force driving aggregate polarization in France, as firms with more techies grew faster.

Auteur(s)

James Harrigan, Ariell Reshef, Farid Toubal

Revue
  • Research Policy
Date de publication
  • 2021
Mots-clés JEL
D3 F1 F16 F66 J2 O3
Mots-clés
  • Firm level data
  • Techies
  • Technological change
  • STEM skills
  • Job polarization
  • Offshoring
Pages
  • 104008
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 50