Regional Employment Change

In this thesis, I study how routinization—the process of codifying and automating job tasks—influences regional employment change. I examine two questions. First, does routinization drive employment change in US metropolitan areas after controlling for occupation and industry mix? Second, does overall employment change occur more strongly through occupational change than industry change across US metropolitan areas? My analysis finds that routinization is a major determinant of both total and relative changes across industry–occupation employment groups; changes in industry group employment have been more important influences on overall employment change than changes in occupation group employment; the di↵erence between occupation group and industry group e↵ects are lessening over time; and joint industry and occupation e↵ects are decreasingly less important in understanding employment change. These findings underscore the importance of task–change in determining employment change and in understanding industries versus occupations as categories for analyzing the evolution of regional economies.