Technological Change and the Labor Market in Argentina and Uruguay

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the employment profile trends in Argentina and Uruguay according to the task content performed by the workers in their jobs. The paper aims to produce an approximation of the impact of technological change on the labor market. The paper uses the definition of an indicator that captures the relative importance of four types of tasks, cognitive/manual and routine/nonroutine, based on the information provided by Occupational Information Network and household surveys. The analysis finds that in the last two decades the relative importance of cognitive tasks in the workplace has increased in line with the reduction of manual tasks, particularly among the youngest cohorts.