DIGISKILLS - Digitalization, Change in Skills and Firms’ Hiring Difficulties - FDEF

This research project investigates the consequences of recruitment difficulties on workers and firms with cutting-edge causal approaches and big administrative

The project at a glance

Start date:

01 Sep 2022
Duration in months:

36
Funding:

409 420
Principal Investigator(s):

Morgan RAUX

About

The development of the Internet transformed many economic activities by decreasing search, replication and transportation costs (Goldfarb and Tucker, 2019). Digitalization changes the task content of occupations and modifies the portfolio of skills required on labor markets (Acemoglu and Autor, 2011, Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2019). The large and persistent increase in the demand for specific skills required by the digitalization gives rise to recruitment issues as the supply for these skills grows more slowly. Therefore, hiring difficulties now represent one of the top challenges cited by employers (PwC, 2021, Elding and Morris, 2018). This project will investigate the implications of firms’ recruitment challenges associated with the digital transformation of economic activities. This research project consists of five work packages. Work packages 1 (WP1) and 5 (WP5) respectively focus on data management and research dissemination. Work packages 2 (WP2), 3 (WP3) and 4 (WP4) all intend to empirically contribute to the literature on the labor market impacts of digitalization by focusing on the role played by labor market tightness. They will contribute by exploring the effect of labor market tightness on career earnings dynamics (WP2), by investigating the effect of labor market tightness on firms’ activities in a broader context than migration restrictions (WP3), by comparing the mitigation effects on firms’ activities from three human resources strategies (WP3) and by documenting why employers favor the recruitment of foreign-born workers in response to labor market tightness (WP4). Work packages 2, 3, and 4 will each give rise to one scientific paper.