Routinization and Employment: Evidence for Latin America

BRAMBILLA, IRENE; CÉSAR, ANDRÉS; FALCONE, GUILLERMO; GASPARINI, LEONARDO; LOMBARDO, CARLO

Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad

Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Lugar: Bogotá; Año: 2023 vol. 95 p. 131 - 176

0120-3584

We study changes in employment across occupations characterized by dif-ferent degrees of exposure to routinization in the six largest Latin American economies over the past two decades. We combine our own indicators of rou-tine task content (RTC), based on information from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), with labor market microdata from harmonized national household surveys. We find that growth in employment was inversely related to the automatability of tasks typi-cally performed in each occupation, and positively correlated with the initial wage. Consequently, the share of high RTC occupations in total employment decreased in all countries and periods. This decline is linked to shifts in the economic structure towards sectors more intensive in low RTC occupations, as well as changes in the intensity of use of different occupations within sectors.