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The Effect of Automation Technology on Decline in Middle Class Jobs at Local Labor Markets in Korea

MINYOUNG KIM 1 조민지 2 Up Lim 1

1연세대학교
2연세대학교 도시공학과

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Over the last couple of decades, the share of middle class jobs has shrunk with the relative expansion of the low or high class jobs. This study aims to examine the impact of technical change, in particular automation technology, on decline in middle class jobs at the level of 121 local labor market areas in Korea for the period 2000~2010. Applying a latent growth modeling approach, we test the hypothesis that local labor markets specialized in routine tasks have experienced the rapid decline in middle class jobs. As a result, decline in middle class jobs is commonly found among the local labor markets. We also confirm that the local labor markets with initially higher routine task specialization have experienced the larger subsequent declines in middle class jobs. The main contribution of our paper is to analyze the differential effect of automation technology on job structure at the local labor markets.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.