The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms

James Harrigan, Ariell Reshef and Farid Toubal

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Abstract: Using administrative employee-firm-level data on the entire private sector from 1994 to 2007, we show that the labor market in France has polarized: employment shares of high and low wage occupations grew, while middle wage occupations shrank. At the same time, the share of technology-related occupations ("techies") grew substantially. Aggregate polarization was driven mostly by changes in the composition of firms within industries. Within-firm adjustments and changes in industry composition were much less important. Polarization occured mostly within urban areas, with roughly equal contributions of men and women. We study the role of technology adoption in shaping firm-level outcomes using a new measure of the propensity of a firm to adopt new technology: its employment share of techies. We find that techies were an important force driving aggregate polarization in France, as firms with more techies grew faster.

Keywords: Firm level data; Techies; Technological change; STEM skills; Job polarization; Offshoring (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02973332v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Published in Research Policy, 2021, 50 (7), ⟨10.1016/j.respol.2020.104008⟩

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Journal Article: The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms (2021)
Working Paper: The March of the Techies: Job Polarization Within and Between Firms (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02973332

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104008

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