Digital age platforms are providing researchers the ability to outsource portions of their work – not just to increasingly intelligent machines, but also to a relatively low-cost online labor force comprised of humans. These so-called “online outsourcing” services help employers connect with a global pool of free-agent workers who are willing to complete a variety...

As automation technologies such as machine learning and robotics play an increasingly great role in everyday life, their potential effect on the workplace has, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. The discussion tends toward a Manichean guessing game: which jobs will or won’t be replaced by machines?

A fast-growing literature shows that technological change is replacing labor in routine tasks, raising concerns that labor is racing against the machine. This paper is the first to estimate the labor demand effects of routine-replacing technological change (RRTC) for Europe as a whole and at the level of 238 European regions. We develop and estimate...

In recent years, there has been a revival of concerns that automation and digitalisation might after all result in a jobless future. The debate has been fuelled by studies for the US and Europe arguing that a substantial share of jobs is at “risk of computerisation”. These studies follow an occupation-based approach proposed by Frey...

In this 2016 publication on the future of work, the European Commission defines the gig economy as an economy in which digital technologies enable teams to be assembled around a given project – and often across borders – while platforms seamlessly connect buyers with sellers. The Commission also notes that much of the latter takes...