Emerging patterns in tasks and skills

Abstract

Automation is now a reality, even in a developing country like India. Machines are now newlineperforming tasks that were earlier done by people. The substitution of people by machines in newlinecertain tasks changes the task composition of jobs. Different sets of tasks and skills are newlinerequired in making the same product, which alters the skills required at the workplace. The newlineinability of policy and workers to adapt and respond to these changing demand conditions newlineresults in a situation where workers cannot be employed by the firms even when they require newlinelabour. Though there is no doubt about the changing work organization in India and its newlineimpact on the labour market, there has been little attempt to empirically analyze the changing newlinetasks and skills. This research contributes to the understanding of the changes in the skill newlinestructure in India and its impact on labour market outcomes such as employment and wages. newlineA major impediment in empirically analyzing skills is that there is still no clear understanding newlineof what one means by skills and how to measure skills. In this research, we use data on the newlineskill-content of occupations from O-NET (Occupational Information Network, developed by newlinethe US Department of labour) which is then mapped with occupational employment data for newlineIndia (from Census of India and National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)) to calculate newlinethe skill indices for occupations and districts in India. newlineThe first chapter is an attempt to describe the pattern and trends in employment in terms of newlinethe skills and tasks involved. We draw upon the literature on job polarization in developed newlinecountries where middle skilled jobs have been declining at the expense of high skilled and newlinelow skilled jobs. To verify if such patterns are mirrored in India, we use O-NET data and newlineclassify occupations into four categories: routine cognitive , routine manual , non-routine newlinecognitive and non-routine manual . We then examine the changes in the distribution of newlineemployment across these categories for different demographic groups using