Job polarisation in Italy: routinisation and structural change?

Notwithstanding evidence on job polarisation in Italy, to date, studies have not investigated the role of structural change in explaining shrinking routine employment. Over the period 2004–2019, despite the structural change pattern of employment featured by the pronounced contraction of the most routine-intensive sector – i.e., manufacturing – declining routine employment emerges as a more generalised phenomenon involving all sectors, regardless of specialisation in routine-cognitive or routine-manual jobs. Province-level routine-tasks specialisation increases employment in low-skill occupations in six out of eight broad industries, while only 20 percent of the total contraction in routine employment is attributable to between-industry shifts.