Technology and the Demand for Unskilled Labor After the Economic Crisis

This study focuses on the possibility that skill-biased technological change is one of the factors for relatively poor employment conditions of the unskilled after the economic crisis. Increasing employment share of skilled workers accompanying with rising wage premium for education since implies that labor demand has shifted toward the skilled. The decomposition of changes in wage share of skilled workers into between-industry and within-industry changes suggests that the increase in the demand for skilled labor has been largely due to within-industry changes, which can be seen as reflecting the effect of the skill-biased technological change. Also the regression results indicate that the employment share of skilled workers has more rapidly increased in the industries with higher ICT (Information Communication Technology) investment intensity since the mid 1990s, hinting to the possibility that skill-biased technological changes may have come from ICT