Technology and the Future of Work: Why Do We Care?

This article seeks to make a compendium of the research and empirical evidence available on the impact of technological change on labor aggregates. It has been documented that increases in labor productivity in the last decades did not have a negative net effect on employment levels. However, technological development and automation have been associated with changes in the composition of employment and polarization patterns that explain the significant fall in the share of middle-class occupations during recent decades in developed countries. In addition, specific characteristics of the digital economy have also been linked to trends in concentration and market power that could explain part of the decline in labor share over income in recent decades. Finally, the article discusses the economics discipline's efforts to anticipate these trends and forecast the future automation of jobs and public policy challenges for the labor markets of Latin America in the fourth Industrial Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]