Job automation: complementarities and capabilities

This chapter summarises the evolution of the rich literature on the impact of automating technologies on the labour market and highlights its main findings. It documents the shift from the view that technologies are a threat to labour due to the substitution of workers with technology to one where most jobs will see a subset of tasks being accomplished by leveraging technological advances - AI, in particular. In more recent years, the potential for complementarities between humans and technology has taken centre stage. Overall, the employment effects of the adoption of new technologies have been positive, although several studies underscore distributional effects, with low-educated workers remaining the groups most negatively affected, even in the age of AI. Based on a scan of the emerging literature and evidence, the chapter recognises that further developments in generative AI and large language models may change this assessment.