The Effects of Technological Changes on Employment

In this Thesis, I study the effects of Technological Changes on employment in a literature review. I present the features technological changes have and how human labor and technology interact in the labor markets. I will answer the question if technological changes cause unemployment by studying David Autor and James Bessen’s models on worker’s skill acquiring decision within occupations and the theory of industry and occupation-specific demand elasticities. The models viewed in this Thesis are quite mathematical but they will offer a decent insight on the labor force behavior. The theory behind industry and occupation-specific demand elasticities is definitely abstract but it manages to explain the main effects of occupation and industry-specific matters on technology affected employment. Finally, I present an outlook of the effects that the digitalization might have on employment