Digital Adoption, Labor Demand, and Worker Earnings: Evidence from Online Delivery

Pascuel Plotkin

No 26067, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: This paper studies how firm adoption of digital technologies reshapes labor demand and worker earnings. Linking administrative employer-employee records to restaurants and workers from a major delivery platform and using a matched event-study, I show that adopting restaurants substitute in-house labor hours one-for-one with outsourced platform-worker hours. Earnings losses for incumbent workers are modest because displaced workers reallocate to new formal-sector jobs. Exposed non-adopting restaurants are more likely to close, and their workers experience larger losses. I quantify earnings effects across restaurant and platform workers, showing how platform adoption redistributes earnings across workers and creates income outside traditional restaurant employment.

Keywords: Alternative work arrangements; gig economy; technological change; outsourcing; displacement; informality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J31 J46 J63 L86 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:26067

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