Pathways of Technological Change: An Epidemiological Approach to Structural Unemployment in the U.S. Service Sector

Jeffrey G. Woods
Additional contact information
Jeffrey G. Woods: School of Business, University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA

International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD), 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: While technological change benefits the U.S. service sector and the economy as a whole, the creation, design and production of innovations may favor highly-skilled over less-skilled workers. If skill-biased technical change creates more job vacancies for skilled, relative to less-skilled workers, less-skilled workers are at greater risk of becoming structurally unemployed. An epidemiological model is developed that describes the pathways to, and prevention of, structural unemployment (SU) of less-skilled workers. Less-skilled workers must protect themselves from being “infected” by the diffusion of skill-biased technical change in the service sector. They must choose to become “vaccinated” with “injections” of human capital to reduce the probability of contracting the “disease” of (SU) and to avoid permanently working in de-skilled jobs. By making less-skilled workers more productive, one can simultaneously improve the distribution of education and training, health and income inequality while providing the government more tax revenue.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve. ... 18/ijsesd.2014010101 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:igg:jsesd0:v:5:y:2014:i:1:p:1-11

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD) is currently edited by Elias G. Carayannis

More articles in International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD) from IGI Global
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journal Editor ().