Anton Cheremukhin, senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, has answers to this pressing question. Hat tip to RealClearMarkets for the link. Cheremukhin writes:
The distribution of jobs by skill level has shifted dramatically since 1980. The number of jobs requiring medium levels of skill has shrunk, while the number at both ends of the distribution—those requiring high and low skill levels—has expanded.Jobs are classified as cognitive or manual, and also as routine or non routine.
This declining prominence of middle-skill jobs is not driven by changes in labor market institutions, such as declining unionization. Rather, an increase in automation of routine tasks, a relative scarcity of skilled workers and to a lesser extent, relocation of jobs outside the country (are responsible).
Routine jobs have declined from 58 percent of employment in 1981 to 44 percent in 2011, while both types of non-routine jobs have expanded. The biggest declines in cognitive routine jobs were concentrated in such occupations as administrative support and sales. Examples of rapidly declining jobs are brokers, clerks, tellers, cashiers, telemarketers, title examiners, bookkeepers, insurance underwriters, travel agents and technicians. Among the manual routine jobs on the decline are mail carriers, drivers, cooks and engravers.Ergo, the changes in employment are largely technology-driven. Cheremukhin's entire article is worth reading, the tables are particularly revealing.
Patterns of polarization similar to those in the U.S. have been found in 16 developed European countries whose labor market institutions markedly differ. Thus, changes in labor market institutions are unlikely to play a big role in polarization’s growth.
