Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Fast-Tracking Automation in Developing Countries? Evidence from Colombia

JOURNAL OF HUMAN CAPITAL
Número: 
4
Publicado: 
Clasificación JEL: 
F16

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María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo, Karina Acosta, Olga Lucia Acosta Navarro, Lucia Arango-Lozano, Fernando Arias-Rodríguez, Oscar Iván Ávila-Montealegre, Oscar Reinaldo Becerra Camargo, Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, Grey Yuliet Ceballos-Garcia, Luz Adriana Flórez, Juan Miguel Gallego-Acevedo, Luis Armando Galvis-Aponte, Luis M. García-Pulgarín, Andrés Felipe García-Suaza, Anderson Grajales, Daniela Gualtero-Briceño, Didier Hermida-Giraldo, Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez, Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, Karen Laguna-Ballesteros, Francisco Javier Lasso-Valderrama, Daniel Márquez, Carlos Alberto Medina-Durango, Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra, María Fernanda Meneses-González, Juan José Ospina-Tejeiro, Andrea Sofía Otero-Cortés, Daniel Parra-Amado, Juana Piñeros-Ruiz, Christian Manuel Posso-Suárez, Natalia Ramírez-Bustamante, Mario Andrés Ramos-Veloza, Jorge Leonardo Rodríguez-Arenas, Alejandro Sarasti-Sierra, Bibiana Taboada-Arango, Ana María Tribín-Uribe, Juanita Villaveces
Wilmer Martinez-Rivera, Manuel Darío Hernández-Bejarano

We assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the automation process in Colombia, a country with low R&D and productivity and high labor informality. We estimate event-study models to evaluate the differential effect of the pandemic on job openings and salaried employment by the potential degree of automation of each occupation. The results indicate that both vacancies and salaried employment declined more in highly automatable occupations. However, there is no evidence of persistent effects. We find that automation mainly affected the labor market of females, individuals over 40 years old, and low-paid occupations.