Technological Change and Patterns of Employment

The impact of technological change on the economy has been a controversial issue since at least David Ricardo’s article in the nineteenth century. The labor-saving effect of new technologies has been evident at least since the Luddites movement that was violently opposed to the introduction of new technologies. Today, this issue is rapidly gaining interest as the spread of digital (and more recently of AI-related) technologies is changing the landscape of the labor market at an unprecedented rate. The displacement effect on the labor market caused by the introduction of new technologies has triggered a major debate on the impact of technological change on the labor market, whether or not it leads to polarization of employment and wages. In addition, the introduction of new machines has transformed how production and work are organized, their social and cultural characteristics, and the way they interact with the institutional framework. An interdisciplinary approach to this phenomenon is therefore required as the new digital technologies have the capacity to bring about changes in the entire socio-economic system.