Employment Polarisation in European industries

Job polarisation instead of pure upgrading emerges in European industries. In this article, changes in employment are investigated at the sectoral level focusing on the International Standard Classification of Occupations relying on of four major professional groups: Managers, Clerks, Craft and Manual workers. The analysis covers 35 manufacturing and service industries of Germany, Spain, France, Italy and United Kingdom over 1999–2011 in relation to sectoral technological trajectories. A variety of dynamics emerges: relative upskilling is detected in manufacturing compared to skill polarisation in services suggesting the relevance of processes of structural and job changes at the sectoral level