IT Skills, Occupation Specificity and Job Separations

Christian Eggenberger and Uschi Backes-Gellner

No 15694, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines how workers' earnings change after involuntary job separations depending on the workers' acquired IT skills and the specificity of their occupational training. We categorize workers' occupational skill bundles along two independent dimensions. First, we distinguish between skill bundles that are more specific or less specific compared to the skill bundles needed in the overall labor market. Second, as digitalization becomes ever more important, we distinguish between skill bundles that contain two different types of IT skills, generic or expert IT skills. We expect that after involuntary separations, these different types of IT skills can have opposing effects, either reducing or amplifying earnings losses of workers with specific skill bundles. We find clearly opposing results for workers in specific occupations – but not in general occupations: Having more generic IT skills is positively correlated with earnings after involuntary separations, whereas more expert IT skills is negatively correlated.

Keywords: human capital specificity; vocational education and training; IT skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J63 M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Published - published in: Economics of Education Review , 2023, 92, 102333

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Related works:
Journal Article: IT skills, occupation specificity and job separations (2023)
Working Paper: IT Skills, Occupation Specificity and Job Separations (2022)
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