Robots, Resource Booms, and Baristas: Trying to Predict the Future Job Market for University Graduates
A presentation by Vancouver School of Economics Professor David Green
Thanks to everyone who attended this lecture and contributed to a robust Q&A session. To hear a podcast of David’s presentation, click here.
Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Location: SUB Auditorium (Norm Theatre), 6138 Student Union Boulevard
The media is full of stories of technological wizardry transforming the workplace. From robots to problem-solving software that can replace experts, technological change is reducing the demand for some workers while raising the demand for others. Until recently, we believed that these changes would imply continually growing demand for university graduates. But we will discuss evidence that demand for university graduates in jobs that require cognitive skills has been declining in the US since about 2000, and that something similar has been happening in the UK. The result is that more university graduates have been “cascading” down through the occupation structure, ending up trapped in barista type jobs – though it is still better to have a university degree than not. In Canada, the evidence on demand for university grads is more mixed, with the resource boom shifting our job market away from US trends. We will discuss what this all may mean for the future prospects of university graduates.
The event is free-of-charge, and no pre-registration is required.
Speaker Biography
Professor David Green
David Green is a professor in the Vancouver School of Economics at UBC, an International Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. His research interests centre around determinants of the wage and employment structure. In his recent work, this has entailed examining the impacts of technological change on the labour market.