Employment Impact of Technologies in the Developing World

The composite link between technological change and employment: A survey of the literature

“…If labor market laws and institutions are rigid and do not provide sufficient incentives for investment in skill upgrading, technology adoption may lead to job loss (Pissarides & Vallanti, 2004). Similarly, weak governance‐specific institutions may motivate managers to adopt productivity‐augmenting strategies at the cost of labor demand (Mitra & Sharma, 2020).…”

“…Moreover, Sharma and Mitra (2020) analyze both the quantitative and qualitative effect of technological change on employment. Some studies (i.e., Araújo et al, 2012;Meschi et al, 2011;Meschi et al, 2016;Mitra & Jha, 2015;Mitra & Sharma, 2020) focus on developing economies. However, the quantitative or qualitative effect of technological change in these countries is generally also (or mainly) attributable to the so-called import-related technological change (see for instance Conte & Vivarelli, 2011;Meschi et al, 2016;Mitra & Sharma, 2020).…”

“…If labor market laws and institutions are rigid and do not provide sufficient incentives for investment in skill upgrading, technology adoption may lead to job loss (Pissarides & Vallanti, 2004). Similarly, weak governance-specific institutions may motivate managers to adopt productivity-augmenting strategies at the cost of labor demand (Mitra & Sharma, 2020). Some multi-country studies control for institutional variables (e.g., Breemersch et al, 2019;European Commission, 2014), while others include country fixed effects to account for national specificities (e.g., Marcolin et al, 2016).…”

“…All in all, the extant literature has reported evidence of a positive impact of R&D and product innovation on employment, especially when the analysis is conducted at the firm level. Examples of firm-level studies that detect such positive average effect are Stam and Wennberg (2009) 2019) (in Spanish manufacturing firms), (in innovative Italian firms), Mitra and Sharma (2020) (in manufacturing firms operating in developing countries). However, this labor-friendly effect seems to be mainly attributable to firms with certain characteristics, such as high-tech (e.g., Pellegrino et al, 2019;Stam & Wennberg, 2009), fast-growing (e.g., Coad & Rao, 2011;Stam & Wennberg, 2009) and large , operating in services and high-tech manufacturing (e.g., Bogliacino et al, 2014).…”

Perceived Roles of Skills in Growth and Transformation of Ready Made Garments and Pharmaceutical Industries in Bangladesh: Results from an Industry Survey

“…Consequently, estimates for the number of jobs at risk of automation range from Arntz, Gregory, and Zierahn (2016) low estimate of 9% in the United States to much higher figures of 43% in the US (Frey & Osborne, 2013), 57% for OECD countries and 85% in Ethiopia (Frey & Rahbari, 2016;Sungsup, Shrestha, Khatiwada, Yoon, & Kwon, 2019). Challenging the higher end estimates, Mitra and Sharma (2020) argue that the dampening effect of new technology on absolute employment seems to be rather exaggerated, although the concern may be justified in relative terms or for unskilled labour (Mitra & Sharma, 2020). This indicates that TVET is increasingly important for low-skilled workers' future job security.…”