Identifying the qualification of the job done through the occupation of the employed can be one of the tools to observe, in the long run, the effects of the changes taking place in the production system, distinguishing them from their timely outcomes.
This is an unusual approach in the statistical analysis of the labour market, which identifies a proxy for changes in the structure of employment. The approach offers new, sometimes counter-intuitive, results in the reconstruction of change in the long run.
The proposed experimental tool groups the basic units (categories and/or professional units) of the classifications of occupations published by Istat since 1991 into a different conceptual structure that identifies 7 modes of qualifying the job done.
If applied to the Labour Force surveys of the last 20 years, the experimental tool shows how the exit and/or the lack of substitution of labour force, which has followed the processes of reorganization, automation of industrial production activated by the companies in particular economic cycles and/or widespread opportunities for investment in new technologies, is above all a consequence of the substitution of qualified manual jobs with medium-high and high qualification work; and that the levels and speed of this substitution also support the delay of the South and the Islands compared to Italy.
For information:
Cataldo Scarnera
ph. +39 080 5479325
scarnera@istat.it
Roberto Antonello Palumbo
ph. +39 080 5479344
palumbo@istat.it
