This paper provides novel results on the relative importance of multiple channels through which digitalization affects job satisfaction. Using part-time students and graduates of professional education and training colleges in Switzerland as a case study, we investigate the relative strength of ten different channels. We find that the association between digitalization and job satisfaction is positive on average. This relationship is mainly due to the increase in productivity and more interesting work. Heterogeneity analyses on subsets of workers suggest that the effect through increasing productivity is more beneficial for women, for older workers, for workers without an executive position, and for workers who did not study in technology-related fields. The effect through the interestingness of work is larger for males and for older workers. Our results further suggest that among the channels that decrease job satisfaction, increase of time pressure and worsening of work-life balance are much more important than the threat of losing one’s job. Both channels are more relevant for men, for older workers, and for workers whose field of study is technology-related.
This paper examines the effect of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the demand for workers in Switzerland. We compare the hypotheses that an increase in ICT leads to upskilling or job polarization and investigate their implications for countries where vocational education and training (VET) is the most widespread education program at the upper secondary level. Using data from a large employer–employee survey, we create a novel measure of ICT based on the percentage of ICT workers within firms. This measure allows us to assess the impact of ICT on the educational composition of the workforce by exploiting variation over time. We find that ICT has an upskilling effect from 1996 to 2018: ICT decreases the demand for low-skilled workers while increasing the demand for high-skilled workers, especially those with a tertiary vocational education. These results strongly suggest that VET is a valid alternative to a strictly academic education, because workers with a tertiary VET degree are as good, or better, at adjusting to technological change as workers with a tertiary academic education.
This paper extends and renes the concept of ICT-driven skills-biased technological change by disentangling the eects of information technologies (IT) and communication technologies (CT). Guided by the theory that IT and CT dierently aect rms' production processes, we investigate the complementarities between these two distinct technologies and workers' levels of education in aecting rms' productivity. Exploiting within-rm variation between 2005-2017, we nd that the use of ITmeasured as use of business management toolsis particularly benecial for workers with a tertiary vocational education. In contrast, CTmeasured as workers' use of the intranetis especially complementary to workers with a tertiary academic education. While consistent with the ICT-driven skills-biased technological change hypothesis, our results oer evidence on the necessity for dierentiating between the eects of IT and CT on rm productivity when dierently educated workers use these technologies.
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