Job Creation and Destruction in the Digital Age: What about Portugal?

Anabela M. Santos (), Javier Barbero and Andrea Conte
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Anabela M. Santos: Comissão Europeia

No 163, GEE Papers from Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia

Abstract: We assess the effect of digitalisation on employment for the European Union countries, and Portugal in particular, using data for the 1995-2019 period. We estimate an augmented labour demand function derived from a Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) cost function to test for a capital-labour substitution effect, distinguishing between digital and traditional capital. The results point towards a positive impact of digital investments on total employment, but the effects are heterogeneous depending on the different employment categories. In particular, high-skilled jobs benefit from digitalisation at the expense of medium- and low-skilled ones. Results for Portugal also show evidence of an overall positive effect of digital investments on employment, showing that an increase of €100.000 in the stock of digital technologies is associated with an increase of 4.6 jobs.

Keywords: Digitalisation; Employment; Skills; Europe; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O33 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2022-06, Revised 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lma
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https://www.gee.gov.pt//RePEc/WorkingPapers/GEE_PAPERS_163.pdf First version, 2022 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mde:wpaper:0163

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